Banks are investing in cloud technology as a significant priority. According to a recent survey by
American Banker, over 40% of executives consider cloud technology among their top five
spending priorities. Additionally, 80% of respondents expect to migrate at least 20% of their
computing infrastructure to the cloud by 2023.

This shift towards cloud adoption is appropriate due to the advantages it offers banks, such as
scalable resources based on usage and the ability to avoid unnecessary onsite hardware purchases
to meet increasing resource demands. However, banks currently face three major challenges in
managing cloud effectively.

The first challenge is the need for more visibility, as they need to understand their cloud usage,
deployment details, and locations to make the most of it. Increased cloud spending can lead to
cloud sprawl and loss of control.

The second challenge is agility, which allows banks to act quickly based on information. Legacy
solutions can hinder this advantage, making it crucial for banks to identify areas they need to
modernise to enhance their agility.

The third challenge is managing cloud spending efficiently. While the cloud provides cost-
effective solutions, expenses can escalate beyond control without proper oversight.

To address these challenges and stay competitive, banks can adopt a CloudOps approach,
emphasising visibility, automation, and continuous optimisation in the cloud. This approach
aligns business objectives with cloud operations, providing banks with a complete understanding
of their cloud-based services, identifying areas for improvement and optimising operations.

Intelligent automation can enhance flexibility, allowing banks to adapt to changing conditions
swiftly. Moreover, optimisation based on the principles of continuous integration and continuous
delivery from DevOps can help banks save money.

Nevertheless, the elastic nature of the cloud presents challenges in managing resources
effectively. Many banks may find themselves surprised by their monthly cloud spending and its rapid growth without a clear strategy to control it. However, with the right approach and
solutions, banks can optimise their cloud operations, ensuring efficient resource utilisation and
cost control.

How Excelien Can Help Financial Services

Of course, it’s one thing to talk about CloudOps for banks; it’s another to implement it at scale.

Excelien also can help banks by finding unused resources in current cloud infrastructure and then
offloading those resources to other consumers. In other words, Excelien allows banks to
effectively sublease some of their excess cloud resources to other businesses, allowing them to
eliminate cloud sprawl and reduce costs without compromising performance.

Banks need the cloud to stay current, connect with fintech firms and effectively address
emerging market challenges. But just having the cloud isn’t enough. Banks need to boost
visibility, improve flexibility and control costs to make the most of cloud deployments.