IBM has renewed its strategic information technology (IT) outsourcing agreement with full service bank Westpac New Zealand for a further five years.

The responsibility of Westpac’s IT infrastructure services, including mainframes and midrange systems, storage, security, data center raised floor services, data center network services, workplace services, and workplace printing will be taken by IBM.

Under the five-year agreement, IBM will deploy new technologies to improve customer service and sustainability, and upgrade existing systems of Westpac.

The new IBM’s z196 mainframes resilience and increased capacity supports Westpac’s growth while virtualised midrange servers and storage offerings will reduce CPU power demands and overall data centre footprint.

The new IBM technology enables enhanced security, data center network technology which ensures a secure and resilient network and the IBM technology supports the low risk transformation to new data centre facilities.

In addition, the new technology provides the upgrade path for Westpac’s workplace environment, ensuring the latest technology is deployed and there is a migration path to the latest operating systems. To provision and manage the overall IT environment new automation tools will be implemented to improve the time to market for new IT offerings in the Bank ensuring the systems remain stable and secure.

IBM New Zealand Global Technical Services general manager Andrew Fox said the new agreement builds on the two companies mutual experience since 2000 and will lead to an even closer alignment of IT services with the needs of Westpac’s employees and customers as our collective team works together to deliver on the bank’s IT vision.

"The ongoing investment by Westpac in advanced technologies will positively differentiate its brand in many ways such as higher energy savings and improved customer service," said Fox.