Cloud Optimization Strategy for a Digital Bank

Business challenge

One of our clients is a UAE-based digital bank providing a revolutionary solution for trade finance services. This solution consists of multiple integrated commercial off-the-shelf products plus cloud-native and serverless applications along with an additional orchestration layer and data storage.

Our cooperation with the client started with a comprehensive technology assessment by our experts. It revealed strengths and gaps in the client’s payment system design and identified overprovisioning and underutilized resources. Our mature approach to the assessment and experience with cloud computing in banking convinced our client to entrust us with implementing a cloud optimization strategy for their digital banking solution. This decision was a logical extension of the existing cooperation between Intellias and the Emirati bank, and it has led to remarkable results for both companies.

Solution delivered

The assessment conducted by the Intellias team showed that the bank’s cloud infrastructure was robust and mature, though with some room for refinement. Intellias experts with experience in the implementation of cloud computing in banking were the right match for the task.

To reduce the bank’s overall cloud spending, we focused on five areas that needed improvement:

• Integrated development environments (IDEs)
• Subscriptions for hardware and services
• Cost-saving mechanisms for cloud services
• Cost of the disaster recovery strategy
• Custom code performance

After a thorough analysis of every IDE, we decided which of them weren’t critical for seamless updates of the bank’s systems and could be decommissioned as part of a cost-cutting cloud optimization strategy. We shut down the redundant IDEs, thus reducing expenses on cloud resources and software licenses.

We used the same approach to optimize subscriptions for hardware and services. Based on current resource utilization, we optimized the sizes of virtual machines and Azure services. To sustain system performance at the required level and address possible spikes in demand, we implemented Azure Autoscale. We also implemented the Azure Monitor tool to track performance metrics.

Furthermore, we applied cloud cost optimization methods to Azure Cosmos DB:

• Removed inactive regions in the multi-region write mode
• Disabled geo-replication for non-production workloads
• Minimized the provision throughput required for databases and data collections
• Set up Autoscale to automate scaling for databases that use the shared throughput model

The comprehensive assessment we conducted earlier allowed us to gain deep insights into our client’s business needs and adjust the bank’s disaster recovery strategy accordingly. The disaster recovery changes we introduced have made our client’s infrastructure for banking in the cloud more cost-effective.

Intellias experts also enhanced the cybersecurity of our client’s system to keep the banking solution compliant with all regulatory requirements. We closed security gaps with native Azure solutions such as Privileged Identity, Access Management, Azure Disc Encryption, and Advanced Threat Protection. We also implemented an additional firewall layer and adopted Splunk technology.

Business outcome

Drawing on vast expertise in cloud computing in the banking sector, Intellias engineers implemented a cost-cutting cloud optimization strategy that has helped our client efficiently allocate business resources. Our initiatives have reduced the total cost of cloud infrastructure ownership by 30%.

We also significantly strengthened the security of our client’s digital banking solution as required by industry and government regulations.

By optimizing infrastructure components and implementing reliable disaster recovery processes, we reduced the number of critical security incidents and increased the solution’s operational stability.

Having demonstrated a mature approach to software development and the ability to provide consulting services, Intellias has become a key technology partner for this digital trade bank.