Nationwide Advances in Hybrid Cloud Technology Strategy

Financial institutions worldwide are grappling with the challenge of modernising their IT infrastructure to meet evolving customer expectations and regulatory requirements.

The banking sector, in particular, has been at the forefront of digital transformation efforts, seeking to balance the need for innovation with the imperative of maintaining robust security and compliance measures.

Against this background, numerous organisations are adopting hybrid cloud solutions to gain enhanced flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency in their IT operations.

One prominent player, Nationwide Building Society, which boasts over 17 million customers in the UK, has recently marked a significant milestone in its digital transformation journey.

The mutual financial institution has opted for Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) GreenLake cloud platform, offers pay-per-use IT resources which combine the benefits of both on-premises and cloud-based systems, spearheading its private cloud initiative. This move is part of Nationwide's broader strategy to accelerate its hybrid cloud implementation and effectively respond to its customers' changing needs.

HPE GreenLake: Nationwide's Platform for Digital Innovation

The decision of Nationwide to adopt the HPE GreenLake highlights a key part of a hybrid cloud strategy that started back in 2018.

This strategy emphasises the necessity for different cloud environments to handle various types of data and tasks, reflecting the complexities faced by a modern financial institution.

Paul Walsh, Director of Infrastructure & Service Delivery at Nationwide, elaborates on the adoption: "Nationwide's hybrid cloud strategy is vital to our ability to compete and ensures we can continue to meet the needs and expectations of our customers. HPE GreenLake cloud is a core component of our hybrid cloud strategy.

“With them we’re building a cloud platform that will further improve our resilience and agility, enabling us to provide even better levels of service and deliver new capabilities to our developers faster than ever before.”

The collaboration with HPE GreenLake aims to establish a more agile, scalable, secure and efficient technological foundation. This transformation is projected to augment the building society's resilience and agility, hence facilitating superior service delivery and accelerating the development of new functionalities for its developers.

Pioneering Improvements in Operations and Client Services

The uptake of HPE GreenLake Management Services promises substantial enhancements to Nationwide's IT operations. This solution permits the building society's IT team to automate and manage infrastructure more dynamically and to present infrastructure as a code.

Such advancements are intended to free up resources for innovation and other value-added activities, concurrently improving control over application builds and security.

Nationwide anticipates that such improvements will quicken the release cycles, accelerating the market introduction of new products and services, thus offering a more uniform customer experience across all digital channels.

Simultaneously, Nationwide will maintain strong controls, essential for managing risks, safeguarding customers, and fulfilling regulatory requirements.

A Balanced Approach to Cloud Computing

Nationwide's progressive hybrid cloud strategy seeks to balance cost optimisation and environmental sustainability. The consumption-based model of HPE GreenLake prevents overprovisioning and allows the building society to pay solely for the capacity it utilises. This strategic approach is anticipated to reduce the IT costs by at least 30% at Nationwide.

In addition, this initiative offers Nationwide a transparent view of its energy consumption and emissions, facilitating a more effective management of infrastructure with a lesser environmental impact.

The company plans to enhance its environmental initiatives through upcycling and recycling end-of-life compute and storage infrastructure replaced by GreenLake's fresh setup.

The broader picture reveals that Nationwide's hybrid cloud approach represents a growing trend in the financial services sector, aiming to draw benefits from both public and private cloud frameworks.

While public cloud solutions offer scalability and advanced technology access, private clouds like HPE GreenLake provide more stringent control over sensitive data and compliance-focused workloads.

Nationwide's strategy involves the integration of public cloud technologies like those offered by Amazon Web Services, with the HPE GreenLake private cloud set-up, allowing for optimal performance, security and cost-effectiveness.

“We are proud to support Nationwide with their cloud vision, providing them with enhanced control and security and the reliability and flexibility for growth,” remarks Matt Harris, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa at HPE.

“Nationwide’s modernisation journey showcases the effectiveness of HPE GreenLake cloud, with the storied institution transitioning from complex, legacy technology to a modern, future-proofed hybrid cloud operating model where a one-size-fits all public cloud could never be the only answer.”

The commitment of Nationwide to cloud economics and sustainability also highlights how technological innovations can align with broader corporate responsibility goals, setting an example for others in the industry to follow.

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