WHY BANK ON DEVOPS? HOW DEVOPS ADOPTION ACCELERATES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IMPROVES COMPLIANCE AND UNLOCKS THE TRUE VALUE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS - ECS

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WHY BANK ON DEVOPS? HOW DEVOPS ADOPTION ACCELERATES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IMPROVES COMPLIANCE AND UNLOCKS THE TRUE VALUE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS - ECS
Why Bank on
DevOps?
How DevOps adoption accelerates digital
transformation, improves compliance and
unlocks the true value of legacy systems

                                           ecs.co.uk
WHY BANK ON DEVOPS? HOW DEVOPS ADOPTION ACCELERATES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IMPROVES COMPLIANCE AND UNLOCKS THE TRUE VALUE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS - ECS
Foreword

Contents
Introduction ........................................... 3

Ensuring regulatory
compliance with DevOps ................ 4

Automate testing to save
time and money.................................... 6

Unlocking the value of
legacy systems ...................................... 8

Why banks need to
change their culture ......................... 10             “Traditional banks need to innovate to survive. The threat of
                                                              challenger banks has been overtaken by the threat of GAFA
Reaping the rewards of                                        (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) who have even greater
outsourced functions ........................12
                                                              scale and customer data; they operate at an unrivalled scale,
Aligning operations and                                       with a significant and complex legacy estate and, invariably,
development functions....................13                   multiple outsource partners. In addition, the volume and
                                                              complexity of regulation is ever-increasing; and regulations such
Conclusion ..............................................14   as Open Banking are making FinTechs even more dangerous. In
About ECS ...............................................15   addition, they operate at an.

                                                              The perception that DevOps is too difficult to introduce for
                                                              traditional banks is absolutely untrue. We know because, at
                                                              ECS Digital, we’ve had great success helping several high street
                                                              banks adopt DevOps.

                                                              Here, we’re pleased to share the results of our experiences; the
                                                              hows and the whys of adopting DevOps in the financial sector.”
                                                              Andy Cureton
                                                              Digital Engineering Director
                                                              ECS

2         Why Bank on DevOps?
WHY BANK ON DEVOPS? HOW DEVOPS ADOPTION ACCELERATES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IMPROVES COMPLIANCE AND UNLOCKS THE TRUE VALUE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS - ECS
Introduction

There has never been a more challenging time to be
                                                                                        The world is changing:
CIO of a big bank. Disruption from digital innovation is
                                                                                        “Banks are facing into three
hitting everyone hard…                                                                  structural challenges in
                                                                                        technology that have been
                                                                                        building over the last 10 to
Externally, on one side, there are threats   issues, including modernising legacy
                                                                                        15 years. First, the loss of their
from nimble Challenger banks who             systems without additional risk.
                                                                                        engineering capabilities. Second,
boast smaller, easier to manage product
                                                                                        no habit of dealing with technical
sets and on another, there are a host        Real-world solutions
                                                                                        debt and automating the
of regulatory changes, including GDPR        Backed by expert commentary from           technology estate relentlessly.
and Open Banking. And ahead, lies the        former CIO of Lloyds Banking Group         Third, their IT service providers
looming spectre of GAFA (Google, Apple,      (LBG) Digital, Jonathan Webster and        and partners who have many of
Facebook and Amazon), Digital/DevOps         Programme Lead at Royal Bank of            the same challenges. To address
unicorns with immense worldwide              Scotland, Gary Peterson, we explore        these challenges requires bold
customer scale and data. Internally,         in detail:                                 moves and imagination.”
many CIOs face the internal challenge                                                   Jonathan Webster
of updating legacy technologies and          • How DevOps helps to focus both           Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital
maintain the high class of service their       operations and development sides of
customers expect.                              the business on the same goals           The state of DevOps:
                                             • How early and continuous testing         ECS has created the 2017 CIO
Time is running out and, to stay               makes regulatory compliance easier       Guide to DevOps, identifying
relevant, today’s big banks need               to achieve and maintain                  major CIO priorities and how
to embrace agile methodologies –             • How both processes and mindsets          DevOps is being used to achieve
across their entire organisation. While        need to change in order to unlock        them. It includes our own
many banks intend to adopt new                 value in legacy systems                  customer experiences alongside
technologies is there, the execution is      • How to institute the right culture for   industry research and insights
often mixed, with many businesses still        DevOps and increased compliance          from the CIOs of five leading
operating with a very linear or waterfall      across the organisation                  organisations.
approach. This white paper analyses          • How automation can dramatically
today’s challenges and shows how               cut both development time and
DevOps can help banks address these            costs.                                   Interested in learning more about
                                                                                        how DevOps is being adopted?
                                                                                        Download our free guide at:
Industry voices
                                                                                        marketing.ecs.co.uk/cio-guide-
                                                                                        to-devops-2018

                                                                                        Keep your eyes open for the
Gary Peterson                                Jonathan Webster                           2018 CIO Guide to Digital
Programme Lead, Royal Bank of                Former CIO, LBG Digital                    Transformation!
Scotland
                                             Jon has over 19 years’ experience in
Gary is leading transformation &             IT Transformation having worked for
change across business, change               some of the largest IT consultancies
management and delivery teams                and financial organisations in the
within RBS. Based on principles              UK. Most recently, Jon has spent the
of continuous delivery, DevOps               past three years at Lloyds Banking
and enterprise-scaled agile, he is           Group leading the Digital and
introducing new organisation design,         Transformation agendas as CIO
software development processes and           and is now a Partner & Managing
methodologies in order to deliver more       Director at The Boston Consulting
customer value and high-quality IT           Group.
service.
                                                                                                                ecs.co.uk      3
WHY BANK ON DEVOPS? HOW DEVOPS ADOPTION ACCELERATES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IMPROVES COMPLIANCE AND UNLOCKS THE TRUE VALUE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS - ECS
Ensuring regulatory
                                     compliance with DevOps
                                     Competition in the banking sector has never been
Real-world experience:
                                     greater, with battles fought against the background of a
ECS is working with a major high
street bank to optimise their        fast-expanding regulatory landscape.
workflows, form a digital agenda
and improve the way they use         Since the crisis of 2008, regulations have
tools such as Jenkins. The bank      grown ever tougher; the scrutiny and              The adoption of DevOps can
previously did quarterly releases    involvement of the Financial Conduct              change the risk game and integrate
for their retail system – this is    Authority (FCA) has increased and The             teams towards a common,
now monthly in certain areas, a      Prudential Regulation Authority insists           achievable goal backed by a
300% improvement. The bank’s         upon a stable approach to both current            considered plan of how to get there.
desire to release continuously is    operations and forward- planning.                 It transforms regulatory changes
currently stopped by the need to     Additionally, regulations are pulling in          from a looming spectre into a
remain compliant with legislation    different directions: a May 2018 deadline         manageable part of the workstream.
and the perception that the two      for Europe’s forthcoming General
are mutually exclusive.              Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),                DevOps pioneers
                                     enacting stricter data management                 Barclays’* adoption of DevOps
The bank has adopted a               requirements, and since January                   has led it to develop small
DevOps agenda and is going up        2018, the Payment Services Directive              interconnected teams to tackle
the maturity curve – when failing,   II (PSD2), aiming to give customers               incremental tasks, or ’going big
they are failing faster. However,    access to more innovative and flexible            through small’. Having channelled
progress is slower than others in    financial services through third-party            this agility and found the optimal
non-banking sectors owing to a       internet and mobile solutions. These              balance between speed and
number of factors outlined in this   providers can now access their banking            control, the company has vastly
white paper.                         information down to transaction level             improved its implementation
                                     thanks to Open Banking services.                  efficiency, and halved time to
                                     Complying with these new regulations              market. As a result, throughout,
                                     while keeping customer data secure is a           doubled in just two years.
                                     tightrope act.
                                                                                       As this shows, adoption of true
                                     Risk reduction                                    DevOps and the introduction of
                                     While banks are keen to innovate                  automation can actually reduce
                                     and compete, they understand that                 the risk of change by removing the
                                     every regulatory change must be                   opportunity for human error.
                                     tackled as an absolute priority. The
                                     teams creating, testing, running
                                     and deploying affected services
                                     are in no doubt as to where their
                                     priorities lie, leading to risk aversion
                                     to change. A single mistake in
                                     implementing alterations to any core
                                     systems, regulated or not, could have
                                     extremely serious repercussions.

                                     *   Jonathan Smart, Head of Development Services and Agility Lead, Barclays – TechBeacon, Jun
                                         2017 https://techbeacon.com/how-barclays-balances-speed-vs-control-devops

4     Why Bank on DevOps?
Broader responsibility                        activities provides the auditability
Regulatory compliance should not              and visibility required to demonstrate   Did you know?
be the end goal of a single team              compliance.                              In 2016**, the cost of regulatory
locked away from decision makers.                                                      compliance in the US was $1.9
DevOps can broaden the burden of              The power of DevOps                      trillion – 10% of the country’s
responsibility so that, with a culture        The application of automation to         GDP.
of collaboration between business             analyse data at each small iteration
and IT teams, and accountability              can vastly reduce workforce cost.
and alignment passed up and down              And, with a solid testing model          Industry voices:
the chain, compliance moves to the            in place, adding rules for future
forefront.                                    regulations (and subsequently            “Regulators are always going
                                              ensuring compliance) is a swift,         to be rightly interested in
Under DevOps methodology,                     straightforward process that doesn’t     what you do and how you do
business proposals and end goals              require entirely new methodologies.      it. Banks shouldn’t view this
are designed to reflect regulatory                                                     as an impediment – but as a
changes from the beginning,and                In summary, while banks are              good opportunity to help make
if the regulatory landscape alters            understandably risk averse to            the case for why they need to
midway through development, then              change, owing to the compliance          transform.”
                                                                                       Jonathan Webster
iterative trials, testing and feedback        and regulatory landscape they            Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital
means improvements can be swiftly             find themselves in, it is a mistake
implemented.                                  to consider it a hindrance to            “RBS has strong engagement
                                              DevOps adoption. On the contrary,        with the banking regulatory
Compliance is a huge drain on                 adopting DevOps methodologies            community. As a bank, we
resources for big banks. For instance,        can help to ensure compliance            put the customer at the heart
Thompson Reuters* suggests that               is achieved across the company,          of everything we do - it’s our
the top 15 US banks employ a total            while increasing productivity and        primary objective. We recognise
of 95,000 staff on compliance                 efficiency allows innovation in          the need to do this all through
alone. Cutting down on the manual             parallel.                                the regulator environment and
overhead of compliance is an                                                           leveraging DevOps practices
attractive proposition and offered                                                     allows us to ensure best practice
DevOps practices. Automation                                                           is bedded in from the start.”
across development and operational                                                     Gary Peterson
                                                                                       Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland

*    Marion Leslie, Managing Director, Thomson Reuters Enterprise proposition –
     https://blogs.thomsonreuters.com/answerson/automation-regulation-compliance/
**   Competitive Enterprise Institute ‘Ten Thousand Commandments’ report 2017 –
     https://cei.org/10kc2017

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                                                                                                              ecs.co.uk       5
Automate testing to save
                                 time and money
                                 Digital transformation in the financial sector is not as
Behaviour Driven Development:
it’s more than just testing
                                 straightforward as in others, due to a unique set of
Behaviour Driven Development     tough challenges.
(BDD) is a business-first
approach that puts an agreed
                                 Banks must deal with the need               but it needs to happen earlier in the
definition of ‘success’ at the
                                 for absolute data security, the             Software Development Life Cycle, a
heart of development and
                                 demands of a strict and ever-               concept known as “shifting left”.
testing. It’s about proper
                                 changing regulatory environment, as
communication from the outset,
                                 well as competition from FinTechs,          There is an appetite for it, but issues
getting all stakeholders in
                                 Challenger Banks and, in particular,        such as provisioning reliable and
the business to set out what
                                 GAFA, who are DevOps natives                repeatable environments are proving
‘done’ really means. This then
                                 operating at incredible scale across        to be stumbling blocks.
becomes the cornerstone of
                                 multiple sectors worldwide.
agile development, a vision of
                                                                             Mainframe systems are expensive to
‘success’ that all departments
                                 Getting testing practices right             run and maintain - and are embedded
can work towards and test
                                 can help make the transformation            within organisations. This means
against continuously.
                                 journey more achievable through             businesses need to leverage shared
                                 reducing both costs and the time            environments, which slows down
When properly implemented,
                                 taken to deliver quality software.          the process as the number of test
BDD should lead to better
                                                                             environments will be limited based on
productivity, quality, time
                                 Testing is typically manual, time-          available infrastructure and resources
to value, and ensure that
                                 consuming and error-prone. This             available.
accurately developed products
                                 creates bottlenecks and slows down
reach the market fast.
                                 the workflow across the rest of the         Time struggles
                                 business, depleting the resources           A number of internal barriers exist within
                                 available for innovation. Enterprises       organisations for something
                                 are looking to solutions that enable        like requesting infrastructure. It is
                                 them to run multiple tests, over            a seemingly simple request, but a
                                 multiple environments in a consistent       traditional siloed organisation structure
                                 manner.                                     and a hyper risk-averse culture owing
                                                                             to regulation means this can be a real
                                 Key challenges                              challenge. On average, requesting
                                 All this is set against the background      infrastructure takes between 3 to 6
                                 of acquisitions, meaning there are          months, depending on the environment.
                                 now, in effect, four big banks in the UK.
                                 Customers may think they are banking        Even with the available infrastructure,
                                 with one bank but are in fact sitting on    the environment must be correctly
                                 the systems of another; as yet, no bank     configured; this is also a typically
                                 has done a full simplification of their     manual and laborious process, leading
                                 systems in the back end. Add to this        to inconsistencies. When environments
                                 issues of dealing with both structured      are set up differently each time, it can
                                 and unstructured data, and it is no         lead to false defects, bugs and errors.
                                 wonder testing has become such a            This makes tests unrepeatable and
                                 complicated problem to solve.               increases time to market. Typically,
                                                                             provisioning environments take between
                                                                             1 and 5 weeks to complete.
                                 Testing in banks is done thoroughly,

6    Why Bank on DevOps?
To speed up the pipeline through                                           of data and data-masking while
           improved environment agility and                                           ensuring that the same set of data                                      The case for automation:
           reliability, we can use container                                          is being run for each set of tests.                                     We worked with a leading
           technologies, such as Docker, to run                                       Its ability to bookmark data points                                     Finance company to help them
           co-existent applications on the same                                       means that tests can be run with                                        embrace automation, starting
           infrastructure. By using containers, it is                                 consistency from an application and                                     with back-end applications. We
           possible to create easily provisioned, on                                  data perspective, ensuring that the                                     reduced their time to deployment
           demand, reliable, and self-contained                                       same real-world datasets are being                                      by up to 60x and dramatically
           environments in a fraction of the time.                                    used throughout.                                                        decreased their change failure
                                                                                                                                                              rate to less than once a year.
           The need for real data                                                     Automation has another benefit in
                                                                                      addition to speeding up provisioning
           To test effectively, production-
                                                                                      of environments and data, that of
           like data is required. Regulatory                                                                                                                  Industry voices:
                                                                                      cost savings. Inconsistent and over-
           concerns, in particular GDPR*, mean                                                                                                                “Banks are good at testing –
                                                                                      provisioned environments can result
           that banks instinctively shy away from                                                                                                             but they’re challenged with
                                                                                      in unpredictable outages. The cost in
           this, but it can be done if the data is                                                                                                            large, complex systems with low
                                                                                      downtime and testers’ time to fix the
           properly anonymised. Quite simply,                                                                                                                 levels of automation. They need
                                                                                      environment is considerable when
           testing modernisation requires access                                                                                                              to quickly adopt automation
                                                                                      calculated over the course of a year
           to consistent and quality data to be                                                                                                               practices, engage the right
                                                                                      with multiple instances, each taking
           able to replicate real production-like                                                                                                             partners who can help, and give
                                                                                      two to three days to fix. Configuration
           scenarios. Yet in many organisations,                                                                                                              their teams the permission and
                                                                                      management tools such as Ansible
           data provisioning remains a very                                                                                                                   support to get on and do it.”
                                                                                      and Puppet give businesses
           manual process, which is both slow                                                                                                                 Jonathan Webster
                                                                                      increased control over downtime                                         Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital
           and unreliable, and results in out-of-
                                                                                      costs by using automation to
           date data.
                                                                                      minimise human error and maximise                                       “RBS is looking to create an
                                                                                      deployment speed.                                                       environment where all processes
           Data virtualisation platforms such as
                                                                                      .                                                                       are automated or orchestrated,
           Delphix can be used to automate
                                                                                                                                                              including automated testing
           data provision, given consistency
                                                                                                                                                              and regression testing. From
                                                                                                                                                              what we’ve seen so far, this
Traditional Environments

                                                                                                                                                              would dramatically reduce lead
                                                    App 1
                                                             App 2
                                                                                                                                                              times and delays in projects
                                                                     Test   Environment Build      Test Environment Reset     Test Environment Reset
                                                                                                                                                              and provides the potential for
                                                                                                                                                              considerable efficiencies in our
                                                                     Test Environment Build                 Test   Environment Reset                   Test
                                                                                                                                                              end-to-end delivery model.”
                                                                                                                   Unproductive wait-time                     Gary Peterson
                                                                                                                   Compromised shared components              Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland
                                                                                                                   Poor quality data
                                                                                                                   Conflicting build times / test cycles
                                                                                                                   Inconsistent versions
Agile Environments

                                            App 1
                                                     App 2
                                                                     Test     Test    Test      Test

                                            V                            Reset Reset     Reset Reset

                                                                     0                            2                          4                            6
                                                                                                           Weeks

           *               https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/

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                                                                                                                                                                                 ecs.co.uk               7
Unlocking the value of
                                             legacy systems
                                             Legacy systems cast a long shadow over the financial
Industry voices:
                                             sector. Essential systems running on old Mainframes are
“Banks have some great
engineering talent in their teams            a fact of life.
that support their mainframe
banking systems and legacy
                                             The fact is that systems using ancient
estates. These teams could add
                                             programming languages (Cobol is             Change is essential
huge value to legacy platforms but
                                             now 58 years old) present a challenge       You are only as fast as your slowest
are generally being underutilised
                                             for companies trying to remain              link. Any system that’s slow and
– mostly due to the misconception
                                             relevant against younger, more nimble       process-heavy will hold back an
that you can’t apply DevOps
                                             competitors. Sometimes the reason           organisation from moving at the pace
tooling and practices on the
                                             for not migrating these systems to          their customers expect and demand
mainframe. You can, and you
                                             newer platforms is the avoidance of         in today’s 24/7 world. Such systems,
should.”
Jonathan Webster                             risk, sometimes it is because there are     left untouched, limit innovation and
Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital     functions that sit as a closed book         are a risk in themselves, as faster, more
                                             (for example, pensions) where there is      agile competitors spring up across the
“RBS has of course faced legacy              simply no value in migrating them.          financial sector.
issues in the past. We’ve put a
lot of effort into addressing this           DevOps is often associated with new,        Businesses have two options for their
and are now coming out the                   startup or unicorn companies like Netflix   legacy applications:
other side. We’ve invested heavily           and Spotify who were in a position to
in building resilient IT systems,            grow from a greenfield project with         1. Re-engineer the application and
enabling us to respond to a                  DevOps at their core. Perhaps because       replace it with something modern
changing banking industry and                of this association, some people            2. Work with what they’ve got to bring it
forward-facing challenges such               wrongly assume that DevOps is not           up to speed
as FinTech disruption, market                appropriate for traditional enterprises
forces and the digitisation of               with legacy technologies already in         When it comes to critical applications in
banking platforms.”                          place. However, DevOps is not about         the financial world, the former is rarely a
Gary Peterson                                                                            realistic or economically viable option.
                                             technologies, it is about behaviour and
                                             practices.                                  Chances are that those legacy systems
              Microservices and Containers                                               are there because their replacement is
                                             In fact, at ECS Digital we are seeing an    simply too risky, both from business and
    Mainframe Technology                     increasing trend, within enterprises, of    regulatory perspectives.
                                             applying DevOps practices to legacy
                                             systems. In many cases, decision-           This leaves option 2 as the only possible
                                             makers are aware of the benefits of         course of action. On the face of it, this
                                             DevOps but need help to understand          may appear to offer limited scope to
                                             how to leverage it in the oldest and        improve business agility, productivity
                                             often most critical and complex areas       and quality - but this is not the case.
                                             of their own organisations.                 Adoption of DevOps principles and
                                                                                         practices enables companies to unlock
                                                                                         value in the systems they already have.
                Devops

8       Why Bank on DevOps?
Changing the legacy mind-set
In traditional enterprises, people           Continuous Delivery on a Mainframe         Industry voices:
are often used to working the way            for example is 100% achievable and         “Banks need to find ways to
they have or their team has for a            there are many tools from leading          improve their old and complex
significant period of time. In order to      vendors such as Automic that provide       ecosystems. Some of that will be
ease cultural challenges associated          the same capability for mainframes as      architectural, but they also need
with the adoption of new ways of             they do for Wintel and Linux platforms.    to automate and push towards
working, it’s important to work with the     Applying DevOps principles to legacy       DevOps tooling and practices
teams that will be impacted, and help        applications enables organisations to      everywhere, old and new.”
them to fully understand the benefits        accelerate the delivery of change to       Jonathan Webster
both to the business and themselves.         existing systems up to the same speed      Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital
Individual benefits include exposure to      as the rest of the company or, at least,
desirable new technologies and working       fast enough to remain competitive.         “Moving to a DevOps model
practices, enhancing their future job                                                   has allowed RBS to tackle
prospects.                                   Lastly, process change can be a            technical debt systematically.
                                             particularly tricky hurdle to overcome.    We have a very well-established
In addition, legacy systems face another     Small changes can have a big               simplification agenda and are
issue, that of skills shortages. As the      impact on end goals and can be             currently looking to further
years go by, legacy skills are becoming      implemented to support even siloed         rationalise and upgrade the IT
less widespread and consequently             organisational structures with little if   estate. We are determined to put
people with those skills are demanding       any collaboration or trust. We take a      customer service at the heart of
an ever-increasing premium. Leveraging       detailed look at the ideal culture for     what we do in Technology.”
automation to embed this rare SME            DevOps in the next section.                Gary Peterson
                                                                                        Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland
knowledge into workflows and pipelines
reduces reliance on these niche skills       All this goes to demonstrate that
and realigns the balance of power            DevOps isn’t just for the new
between organisation and expert.             world. Its adoption can bring huge
                                                                                        A spotlight on Scandinavian
                                             benefits to any business. The key is in
                                                                                        bank, Nordic Nous:
The right tools for the job                  understanding what they are trying
                                             to achieve, which elements are best        Big UK retail banks are still
Tooling is sometimes raised as a                                                        massively reliant on legacy
                                             placed to help achieve those goals,
concern but while there are a number                                                    systems that they cannot risk
                                             the associated benefits, and the
of differ,ent options, adopting DevOps                                                  changing. How can this be
                                             effort required to realise them.
practices doesn’t necessarily mean                                                      overcome?
bringing in new tools to an organisation.
Well-engineered processes supporting                                                    One way, pioneered by
DevOps practices are critical.                                                          Scandinavian banks, is to use
Supporting poor processes with the                                                      new technologies to build a
best tools will have limited benefits –                                                 new customer bank alongside
whilst good processes supported by                                                      the existing bank. Over the
average tools will deliver better benefit.                                              past decade, they have thrown
                                                                                        away their legacy technologies
                                                                                        and invested heavily in the right
                                                                                        frameworks to go down the agile
                                                                                        route.

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                                                                                                          ecs.co.uk            9
Why banks need to
                                           change their culture
                                           Traditional banks have never faced a greater threat,
Industry voices:
                                           with Challenger banks like Atom and Monzo on the rise
“RBS has invested heavily in a top
down and bottom up approach                - and the looming threat of GAFA...
to cultural transformation. We’re
encouraging simulation training,
                                           Unencumbered by legacy technology         change in a blame-free environment.
visualisation and upskilling to
                                           and practices, and underpinned by         Failure demonstrates that boundaries
develop an internal learning culture
                                           methodologies such as DevOps,             are being tested and are an
and get the most out of our people.
                                           Challenger banks are eschewing old-       opportunity to learn.
We’ve also put a lot of ground work
                                           fashioned ways of working in favour
in to ensure that we’ve selected
                                           of an agile culture that promotes         Accepting change
and empowered the right leaders
                                           innovation. And just around the           This is one of the first challenges
to move this learning community
                                           corner lies the threat of GAFA, high-     of moving to a DevOps culture -
forward.”
Gary Peterson                              performing Digital/DevOps native          accepting that there may be better
Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland     unicorns with levels of innovation,       way of doing things. Changing mind-
                                           efficiency and customer centricity that   sets and building confidence in new
                                           most organisations can only dream of.     ways of working is essential to get the
“You can go into any bank today            Traditional banks need to change their    most value from DevOps adoption.
and find pockets of brilliant              culture to meet these challenges – or
engineering. But engineering               suffer the consequences.                  Traditional banks also face
transformation is a cultural                                                         geographical challenges: it is more
shift that needs to be driven              The culture DevOps engenders within       difficult to introduce new methodologies
and lead from the top-down                 organisations brings with it a licence    across multiple disparate locations, but
as well as bottom-up. The key              to fail sometimes – something which       it does
challenge is Leadership having             is essential for any real innovation to   not prevent the adoption of DevOps.
the confidence and belief to drive         exist - with processes in place to spot   For example, the communication
IT transformation by unlocking the         and remedy failures quickly and early,    issue can be solved by focusing on
potential of existing engineering          enabling them to grow faster. In this     knowledge sharing and collaboration
talent, bringing new talent in             way, teams are encouraged to be           across teams and locations, and
and supporting with a new and              proactive, accepting and                  ensuring technology is in place to
relevant set of partners. And, of          understanding of their impact on each     support this.
course, as this transformation is          decision or
still in its early stages for many
large organisations, there isn’t
much priority and that can seem
both lonely and risky. But it needs
to be done. ”
Jonathan Webster
Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital

“Failure is an option here.
If things are not failing, you

10     Why Bank on DevOps?
The importance of people
Many of the challenges in traditional        Big banks, if they are to remain           The best DevOps team
banks involve or are related to people.      relevant in the future, need to change     structures:
These include dealing with different         their culture piece by piece. By           Getting the formation of teams
generations of employees: for instance,      embracing agile methodologies              and structures right in order to
millennials tend not to be loyal to          and concepts (for example, Kanban          implement DevOps efficiently
a company, whereas loyal, rooted             boards for managing and improving          isn’t easy but it’s absolutely key to
employees may be stuck in waterfall          workflows) banks can quickly improve       a successful DevOps adoption.
ways of doing things. There is also          management frameworks so that              We typically see three successful
heavy reliance on contractors, often in      they have a structured system              team structures within our clients:
place for the short term, who offer little   enabling them to reduce their time to
or no long-term cultural benefit to the      market, going from several months to
                                                                                                Platform Engineering Teams
company.                                     significantly shorter timelines.

Banks also tend to be very hierarchical      Every business needs to adopt the
in their management structures,              strategy that works best for it. ECS                   Platform Availability & Upgrades

resulting in disconnects between             Digital, from years of experience                                Define New Practices
levels and teams, and leading to             helping organisations improve
                                                                                                         High Level Strategic and
unrecognised gaps in knowledge that          their ways of working through the                           Tactical Decision Making
are not spotted until after the fact. The    adoption of DevOps, believe the
combination of hierarchical structures,      best approach in most enterprises
traditional ways of working and long-        is Platform Engineering (right). The           Mortgages               Payments              Loans
service employees has a tendency to          Platform Engineering Team sits across
create gatekeeping behaviour, where          the different business units (e.g.
                                             mortgages or payments) but then                                   Virtual Teams
people in fear of change refuse to
share in order to boost their individual     splits and works within each, helping                              Builds Practices

importance to the company.                   the people in those units adopt
                                             different working practices.
                                                                                            Mortgages               Payments              Loans
It’s a team game
                                             Added benefits
Above all, DevOps adoption is about
                                             This structure not only provides a
achieving organisational objectives                                                               Teams based on Functions
                                             unified and consistent approach
– such as improving time to market.
                                             across the business units, but also
Getting the formation of teams and
                                             allows for flexibility within individual
structures right is key to promoting trust                                                 Developers                  QA
                                                                                                                                         Systems
                                             teams who may have different ways                                                            Admin
and transparency and a shared pursuit
                                             of working. The consistent presence
of delivering those goals.                                                                                                            Support and
                                             across business units ensures a joined       Develop Software         Test Software     Maintain Systems

                                             up approach to organisation-wide               Build Practices
                                             requirements such as regulation,
                                             minimising the burden of compliance.       For more insight into these team
                                                                                        structures, read our blog: “The
                                                                                        best team structures for DevOps
                                                                                        success”
                                                                                        ecs.co.uk/resources/best-team-structures-
                                                                                        for-devops-success/

                                                                                                                    ecs-digital.co.uk
                                                                                                                         ecs.co.uk                      11
Reaping the rewards of
                                           outsourced functions
                                           Outsourcing is a solution that comes with its own set of
Industry voices:
                                           problems - a set of problems that DevOps can help solve.
“To date, many IT partners of
banks haven’t followed a business
or operating model that pushes             Outsourced functions can be difficult
them in a DevOps direction. The            to manage directly. The technical
shift to small teams, consistent           debt hidden in code created fast-            Shared responsibility
toolchains and relentless                  and-cheap by an external source              The ideal is to shift testing to the left
automation is a fundamental                may only become apparent after the           and trial new ways of interacting,
change for them. Unsurprisingly,           contract with its creator has ended.         applying them incrementally to
they are having to respond and             Whilst outsourcing may sometimes             the teams working with partners,
the quality of the response will           be financially beneficial, and taking        and analysing the results as they
be key. Not all will be able to            tasks like cryptography out-of-house         happen. Then, as a clear path
change fast enough – or with the           can lead to greater security, proper         emerges, introduce the appropriate
right quality - to keep up with the        governance is crucial - measuring            processes and tooling in other relevant
banks’ needs.”                             code quality should always be an             areas. Maintain control of testing
Jonathan Webster
                                           internal responsibility.                     environments in-house, consider
Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital
                                                                                        creative ways to reduce provisioning
“RBS has engaged with our                  Time for DevOps                              and deployment complexity, and
strategic partners, to share               With entire critical business functions      avoid scheduling conflicts in order to
learnings and improve two-way              now commonly outsourced, DevOps              maximise throughput.
collaboration. This is helping us to       comes into its own. The DevOps
evolve our relationships with our          focuses on collaboration, quality and        DevOps’ principles of shared
suppliers to become increasingly           measurable outcomes helps create             responsibility also flow down to client
interactive and add more                   a unified framework with which to            accountability, although this comes
depth and value to our supplier            interact with multiple services and          with its own set of pitfalls. Suppliers
engagements.”                              suppliers, from staffing solutions to the    who do not live up to expectations
Gary Peterson                              SIAM team and IT backend suppliers           pass failures down the line; the FCA
Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland     that run functions that may once have        sees banks as accountable, no matter
                                           been in-house.                               where the fault may stem from. The
                                                                                        cost of a major outage or regulatory
                                           It may be tempting to encourage              error puts fast-and-cheap into
                                           outsourcers to adopt DevOps                  perspective – but with appropriate
                                           practices, but it is often unrealistic       controls and safeguards, executed
                                           to expect to influence the business          consistently and automatically,
                                           practices of a separate company.             outsourcing is something that can be
                                           The key is to ensure that the entire         managed safely.
                                           lifecycle of a system from development
                                           to operation is supported by DevOps          Shared benefit
                                           practices and tooling. Regardless of         A fundamental pillar of DevOps is the
                                           the activity that has been outsourced        concept of continuous improvement.
                                           it must be delivered as if it was            As contracts with outsourced suppliers
                                           performed internally. It will therefore      complete, consider contract that
                                           automatically be picked up and               provide incentives for improvements
                                           subjected to the same automated              in key KPIs, thus sharing some of the
                                           processes and controls.                      benefit with outsourced partners.

                                           *   http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Documents/supervision/enforcementnotices/
                                               en271115.pdf

12     Why Bank on DevOps?
Aligning operations and
development functions
Many established banks, for all their skill in
                                                                                            Digital leadership:
development, are on the back foot. Keeping pace with
                                                                                            Gartner* predicts that, by 2020,
new technology is never a simple matter.

The challenge from GAFA, who already
operate in a DevOps manner, means
                                              change versus stability and reliability.
                                              Properly adopted, DevOps can
                                                                                            50%
                                                                                            of CIOs will have been displaced
that embracing new ways of working            break this barrier of distrust between        from digital leadership if they
is already an absolute priority for           Development and Operations by                 have not transformed their teams’
traditional banks. Operations don’t           using well-established and defined            capabilities.
have it easy - how many teams                 processes to give each side visibility
support 30-year-old Cobol systems             and accountability. A streamlined             Industry voices:
at the back end and millions of app-          workflow, backed by making
                                                                                            “Dev and Ops need to come
based mobile users on the front end?          communication a priority, offers
                                                                                            together to drive wider business
                                              reassurance to operations whilst
                                                                                            and IT teams to follow suit. This
DevOps is typically prevalent at              making Development aware of past,
                                                                                            will indirectly align accountability
the more digital front-end but it’s           current and future challenges.
                                                                                            and ownership within businesses,
less common at the back-end,
                                                                                            improving the delivery of complex
in part due to perception around              Underpinning the workflow with
                                                                                            projects - but it does require
legacy and traditional systems. In            automation provides Development
                                                                                            investment in time and money to
the risk-averse world of banking, the         with increased velocity, while
                                                                                            change the operating structure of
reticence of operations towards any           embedding controls and the
                                                                                            a major bank. So it won’t happen
kind of change is understandable.             inherent consistency of automation
                                                                                            without conscious investment..”
                                              provides Operations with comfort.
                                                                                            Jonathan Webster
The blame game                                In an ideal sructure, Development             Former CIO, Lloyds Banking Group Digital
A cursory glance at the customer-             and Operations resources work in
facing outages of the past few years          the same physical or virtual team             “Being such a large organisation,
confirms that customers are not               supporting a platform or customer             RBS has been focusing for some
supporting a blameless culture. The           journey.                                      time on the best ways to bring
idea of altering or replacing an ageing                                                     all teams focused on customer
but functional system does not sit well -     Strategic improvements                        journeys and outcomes together.
operations know full well that negative       No methodology can change the                 This is helping our people get
headlines, fines or even jail time loom if    development lifecycle of legacy               closer to customer outcomes
services are impacted or regulations not      systems overnight. Automation                 and ways that technology can
met.                                          provides control, visibility, insight and     support the Banks 2020 strategic
                                              much more. This helps operations              goals.”
However, banks cannot afford to               maintain and even improve service             Gary Peterson
stand still if they wish to exist in 10       levels through increased bandwidth            Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland
years’ time. As a result, the business        for high value tasks. Enhanced
sides are pushing for change, for             communication between operations
new features and an increase                  and other stakeholders in the
in overall agility. In a traditional          development lifecycle ultimately
structure, development – who deliver          improves collaboration and efficiency,
the change and new features – are             which are vital to meet the challenge
often effectively working in opposition       of GAFA where all this is native.
to KPIs. For example, innovation and

*   https://www.gartner.com/binaries/content/assets/events/keywords/infrastructure-
    operations-management/iome5/gartner-predicts-for-it-infrastructure-and-operations.pdf

                                                                                                             ecs-digital.co.uk
                                                                                                                 ecs.co.uk         13
Conclusion

Industry voices:                         Banks are aware of the need to adopt DevOps to gain
Businesses should have a plan to         competitive advantages but are struggling to replace
tackle all of the areas [mentioned       ageing waterfall methodologies with agile techniques.
in this whitepaper] to be successful
with their DevOps initiatives.
At RBS, we’re confronting them           As we have seen, big banks are                                                     It’s a myth that legacy issues mean
with one of the largest agile and        struggling to keep up with the pace                                                DevOps practices can’t be applied.
DevOps transformations in the            set by Challenger banks and FinTechs                                               Technologies such as containerisation
banking industry to date. This vision    who have smaller product sets and                                                  and data virtualisation, coupled with
is being supported across the entire     don’t have to deal with updating                                                   automation, can improve the speed
business, enabling us to deliver         legacy technologies. They also have                                                and quality of change in existing
more value for our customers.”           the problem of preparing for the                                                   systems, whilst reducing reliance on
Gary Peterson                            GAFA threat, which is potentially far                                              increasingly scarce and expensive
Programme Lead, Royal Bank of Scotland   greater than that posed by current                                                 specialists.
                                         challengers, given GAFA’s volume of
How ECS Digital can help:                customer data and scale. All that, and                                             The heritage advantage
Every organisation is unique.            then add a host of regulatory issues                                               Ultimately, DevOps adoption is a
There is no“one size fits all”           like GDPR and Open Banking.                                                        journey. Big banks don’t have a
solution for the adoption of                                                                                                blank sheet of paper to start from
DevOps, which means that                 Learning to overcome DevOps fears                                                  like Challenger banks, FinTechs
the barriers to DevOps are               and misconceptions                                                                 and GAFA. So unless they build
different and specific to each           Banks are slowly changing their                                                    separately on the side (an extremely
organisation. Successful adoption        organisational structures and                                                      costly venture) they’ll always have
of DevOps requires both top-             operating models to bring business                                                 the heritage challenge. That
down money and bottom-up                 change and IT closer together. Such is                                             challenge does, however, come
buy in, which is why most of our         the risk-averse nature of the industry,                                            with tried and tested operational
customers begin their interaction        that an aversion to quick change is                                                processes - which typically
with us through a DevOps                 almost built in.                                                                   demonstrate greater resilience and
Maturity Assessment.                                                                                                        availability than their more nimble
                                         But it doesn’t have to be this way                                                 competition. Combining this with
The ECS Digital DevOps                   – DevOps is not risky in any way                                                   the agility, quality and compliance
Maturity Assessment:                     when properly implemented. In fact,                                                benefits of DevOps gives big banks
We review your organisational            getting the culture and working                                                    formidable capability with which to
culture, structure, processes            methodologies right can help                                                       compete in the digital era.
and tools, and recommend how             to strengthen governance and
DevOps methodologies could be            regulatory compliance across the
adopted to deliver more value            business whilst increasing innovation                                                            BDD

to your company. The output is           and agility.
                                                                                                              OUS TESTI
a roadmap for the adoption of                                                                               NU
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benefits (backed up by metrics                                       N
                                                                                                                                                                   DELIVERY
                                                                                          RE
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                                                                                             AS CODE

and KPIs) that can be achieved
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and considers your potential                                                                                     ER
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organisational barriers.                                                                                                                                    RA
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                                                                                                                                 DevOps

14    2017 CIO Guide to DevOps
About ECS

ECS is a leader in automation and digital
                                                                          Customer successes:
transformation. We help enterprises deliver software,
and software-related services, faster and at lower
cost through the adoption of DevOps and Continuous
Delivery practices. We’ve been delivering successful
                                                                          36x
                                                                          Enabled a leading Telco to deliver 36
projects since 2003, with hundreds of happy customers.                    times faster than competitors

We work closely as consulting
partners with key vendors including:
Automic, AWS, CloudBees, Docker,
GitHub and Puppet, as well as
                                        Our core services include:

                                        DevOps and Continuous Delivery
                                        • DevOps Maturity and Readiness
                                                                          30%
                                                                          Aided 30% year on year growth for
                                                                          an online Gambling business using
directly with customers. We have          Assessments*                    Automation
helped over 100 customers, including    • DevOps Strategy
a global top three retailer, a top      • DevOps Consulting
five UK retail bank, and a large
European telco – realise the benefits
of DevOps and Continuous Delivery
practices.
                                        • DevOps Training
                                        • Tool Specific Health Checks,
                                        Recommendations and
                                        Implementation.
                                                                          60x
                                                                          Reduced deployment time by up
                                                                          to 60 times for a leading Finance
Many of our customers begin             Agile Testing                     company
their interaction with us through       • Continuous Testing and Test
a Review or Assessment*, from
which we provide instant tailored
recommendations specific to
their business, challenge and IT
                                        Automation
                                        • BDD/ATDD Solutions
                                        • Information Visualisation       75%
                                                                          Reduced deployment times by 75%
environment.                                                              for one of the world’s leading Retailers

                                                                          92%
More information can be found at
www.ecs.co.uk

                                                                          Reduced in time to market through
                                                                          the introduction of BDD and
                                                                          Continuous Delivery, supported by a
                                                                          revised test strategy

                                                                          99%
                                                                          Reduced time to market (3 days
                                                                          to 22 minutes) by re-engineering a
                                                                          customer’s ‘proprietary’ automated
                                                                          test pack using open source tooling

                                                                                           ecs-digital.co.uk
                                                                                               ecs.co.uk        15
Want to work with a trusted digital
transformation consultancy?
hello@ecs.co.uk
ecs.co.uk

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