UnionBank takes the next step towards digital transformation with Cloud Migration
Union Bank of the Philippines has consistently been recognized as one of Asia’s leading banks for profitability and efficiency, which is a direct result of embracing technological innovations to empower its customers. As part of its digital transformation journey, UnionBank is right on schedule with its activities towards moving its infrastructure to the cloud.
Cloud migration is becoming an important business initiative, more so now in the pandemic. Companies wishing to move on from their legacy infrastructures, which are proving to be outdated and increasingly inefficient in comparison with the current and future technology landscape, or abandon hardware and software solutions that are impeding their ability to operate at optimum capacity, are now turning to the cloud.
Cloud migration is critical for achieving real-time and updated performance and efficiency. UnionBank is currently migrating hundreds of its mission-critical applications to the public cloud. This technology strategy, upon successful completion, will have UnionBank moving from monolithic architecture to a microservice architecture that not only allows the bank to serve its customers 24/7 but is also able to release improvements quickly and securely.
From Monolithic to Hybrid Cloud
An organization on a monolithic architecture faces the need to migrate and modernize hundreds to thousands of legacy applications in some fashion. The organization may also need to devise and implement strategies that will allow the organization to pivot or scale up and down at speed when needed be without disrupting operations, nor compromising data security.
Adopting a microservice architecture allows an organization to do just that. In a microservice architecture, applications are arranged as a collection of loosely-coupled services. Loosely-coupled, in cloud computing terms, means that the services are weakly associated with each other, and thus, any changes or improvements in one service least affect the existence or performance of the other.
Adopting a microservice architecture also ensures that the organization does not fully shut down its operations if one service breaks down.
With advice and collaboration with its cloud service providers, UnionBank identified that it needs to adopt a hybrid cloud architecture, the scope of the digital transformation, and the resources it needs to move to the cloud. This cloud architecture model, which is a mixture of on-premise infrastructure, public and private cloud, allows UnionBank to keep its support-oriented services in public while keeping important and sensitive data in private.
UnionBank is already running 97 percent of its operations on the private cloud by VMWare, and migrating its services applications to the public cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS) can be done without refactoring and re-platforming every single application, which can be time-consuming and
costly. The bank simply had to move its applications from its VMWare stack on-premises to the same AWS stack can be done without running the risk of compromising application uptime, security, and networking.
The move to the cloud also allowed UnionBank to gain over 40 percent savings through reduced data center costs and improved operational efficiency.
Becoming Agile & Hyperscale
A microservice architecture also allows an organization that develops its own software to scale up or offer new services by demand. As an organization that prioritizes financial inclusion, or ensures that everyone in the Philippines has access to banking regardless of their background, moving to the cloud provides the bank opportunities to introduce new and improved applications built on existing or new microservices that will accomplish such mission.
UnionBank Online has changed the game in terms of opening accounts and bank transactions. Anyone can now open a bank account from anywhere in a matter of minutes, which is still a process that takes a number of business days for processing and a visit to an actual bank. UnionBank Online is also integrated with microservices that are traditionally conducted in person during business hours at a local branch – deposit a check, open an emergency fund, invest in an insurance product, pay a bill, and even activate an ATM card.
DevSecOps, short for Development, Security, and Operations, allowed UnionBank to be fully operational 24/7. DevSecOps is a process that automates the integration of security at every phase of the software development lifecycle, from initial design through integration, testing, deployment, and software delivery. Together with Sig Sigma security measures, DevSecOps enables UnionBank to be operationally resilient while making its services digitally accessible to everyone from any time, anywhere.
DevSecOps also provides additional speed and agility in their operations, making digital services a seamless experience every single time for every customer, regardless of the number of sessions.
Empowering the People
In a recent talk, Dennis D. Omila, EVP and Chief Information & Operations Officer of Union Bank of the Philippines shared that part of UnionBank’s digital transformation journey is role transformation. With 70 percent of the people in the Philippines that are still “unbanked” or with limited to no access to banking services, moving to the cloud allows UnionBank to provide accessible services that empower Filipinos with their financial decisions and investments, regardless of their background.
Moving to the cloud also includes people transformation in the organization as well. UnionBank, through its Learning & Development business unit, is on schedule in updating the competencies and capabilities of its people, with special emphasis on cloud software and containerization tools, including VMWare, AWS, Infosys, and Microsoft Azure.
UnionBank also has a team that worked on change management to ensure organization engagement during the digital transformation journey.
A key aspect of cloud migration success is choosing the right cloud partners. UnionBank leveraged its rapport and relationships with its cloud partners, who are also at the same time the organization’s learning service providers, and provides training and certification programs specific to the cloud technologies the bank adopted for its digital transformation.
Why Move to the Cloud?
Each organization has different needs and reasons why they need to move to the cloud. Ultimately, UnionBank’s commitment to technological innovation and financial freedom for the Filipino provided the organization the insight, the strategy, and the right people to partner with to make the cloud work for the organization.
Yes