John Atkinson, Director, Sales Engineering UKI at Riverbed Technology
Over the past decade we’ve seen a huge spike in use of hybrid cloud. As network traffic rises, mobile becomes ubiquitous and applications become more complex, legacy and on-premises systems quickly became unsuitable to meet the needs of modern consumers. Throw in a global pandemic that rapidly shifts the workforce to remote working, and dynamically changes consumer behaviours, companies, particularly in the financial services industry, have increased their adoption of hybrid cloud. Looking to take advantage of its reduced cost, flexibility, safekeeping, and the ability to deploy services quickly to meet consumer needs.
But the transition from legacy or on-premises to hybrid is not simple. Without insight into the whole IT stack, it can be hampered by a lack of visibility, fragmentation, and no control over the network or application performance. This in turn can put the brakes on digital transformation projects, as well as be detrimental to productivity, not to mention have severe financial and reputational consequences.
Despite the challenges of transitioning from legacy to hybrid cloud, it is unavoidable for today’s financial institutions. Let’s remind ourselves why.
The appeals of shifting to hybrid cloud
In the world of banking, challenger banks such as Revolut, Monzo and Starling Bank have changed consumer expectations around banking and managing their money. Built on agile, cloud native platforms they are able to innovate, acclimatise and deploy new services quickly which is simply not possible for legacy and traditional high street banks, who have been slow to adopt digital services.
A clear example is when COVID-19 hit eighteen months ago. Overnight high-street banks were forced to close and scrambled to shore up their online and mobile platforms as consumers demanded the same experience that challenger banks were already providing. To add to the worry of conventional banks, Deloitte stated that 20 percent of all retail banking customers have used at least one online service for the first time during the pandemic. It’s, therefore, no surprise that traditional high street banks struggled to keep up, as legacy systems were overwhelmed, and they simply didn’t have the bandwidth or capacity to support the levels of traffic. Hybrid cloud provided the solution, offering the agility that banks and financial institutions desperately needed to deal with any uncertainties to come.
Visibility is crucial for financial institutions
With transitions from legacy to hybrid cloud ongoing, visibility is going to become vital. For example, being able to monitor across the tech stack, the impact of applications on the network and troubleshoot problems quickly before it impacts consumers, employees or the business as a whole. Riverbed’s Rethink Possible report adds weight to the argument, as according to the study, one in three IT decision makers have a shortage of full visibility into their applications, systems, and end-users. Investment in the correct technology and complete visibility is, therefore, crucial for financial institutions to optimise their customer’s experiences. Never more so than in conventional or high street banks.
Investing in performance management and accelerating applications
For IT teams within financial institutions to ensure their cloud-based systems are operating effectively, performance management tools are critical. Through embracing solutions such as application acceleration or visibility tools, IT teams are able to monitor and assess network performance in real-time, identify latency spikes and solve any issues quickly. For instance, if a large amount of files or documents need to be transferred which will impact the speed of apps like Office 365 or Google Suite, implementing a SaaS Acceleration solution will provide the comprehensive visibility into network and application health to resolve performance and security issues when slowdowns inevitably occur.
The future is hybrid
To remain competitive and thrive in a post-pandemic world, banks and financial services should embrace hybrid cloud. However, the success of this transition is underpinned by the need to optimise IT performance, and business efficiency. With a focus on complete visibility, and implementing performance management and application acceleration solutions, financial services companies can ensure their employees and customers experience minimal disruption as they transition from legacy infrastructure. In doing so, they will be prepared to innovate and grow, as well as develop and deploy new services to drive future success in a digital world.
