IBM and Indian Bank have joined forces to implement new front-end banking applications and establish a secure computing infrastructure. In this collaboration, the public sector bank seeks to streamline its Front Branch Servers for improved manageability and availability at its Data Centres (DC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) centres in Mumbai and Chennai. Additionally, the bank plans to deploy its CBS workloads on the latest generation of IBM Power servers under Project PARADISE.

This initiative will enable the bank to optimise its available computing resources more efficiently and contribute to reducing the overall cost of ownership.

Deepak Sarda, Chief General Manager of IT and Partnership at Indian Bank, explained, "In line with our capacity management efforts and to address evolving application requirements, we aimed to introduce cloud-like functionality within our in-house data center. By offering benefits such as enhanced flexibility, cost reduction, and heightened security, we are establishing a value-driven solution that establishes a proactive and service-oriented model for the bank."

IBM has proposed a hybrid cloud approach for all AIX workloads to enhance agility and has introduced a combination of Capital Expenditure (Capex) and Operating Expenditure (Opex) models to cater to Indian Bank's digital infrastructure requirements.

This approach essentially provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and encompasses various capabilities such as expanded compute and storage resources, the creation of a private cloud using existing resources, the establishment of a unified pool of processors across DC and DR, and the provision of services similar to a pay-as-you-grow model, as stated in the release.

Among the array of services deployed by Indian Bank, IBM PowerSC will be employed for all AIX endpoints to enhance support for compliance audits, thereby simplifying and enhancing security for their private cloud. Furthermore, the bank will utilise IBM PowerVC for simplified virtualisation management, cloud deployments, workload image management, and resource optimisation for IBM AIX Servers.