Investment banking giant UBS has picked Juniper Networks to overhaul its data centre network infrastructure.
Juniper will build a network architecture before helping to virtualise UBS data centres, implementing its own software to offer data analytics and automation as it seeks to create a private cloud for the company.
UBS plans to utilise parts of Juniper’s open MetaFabric architecture, which is geared at accelerating the deployment of apps across multiple data centres, as it transforms its infrastructure to become faster and more agile.
It hopes to increase the flexibility of its resources to meet the performance demands of customers anywhere at any time.
"Banks are re-engineering their business models in light of changing market and regulatory conditions, changing customer behaviour, and emerging technologies," said Shaygan Kheradpir, CEO at Juniper. "Managing this transformation in financial services requires an intelligent network infrastructure. It also requires building private clouds that deliver applications with high performance and agility."
Gartner predicted in its March report ‘2014 CIO Agenda: A Banking/Investment Perspective‘ that 68% of banking and investment institutions will change their approach to technology in the face of new industry regulations and economic changes.
The financial sector faces pressure to turn IT into a business driver at a time when CIOs are being tasked with reducing maintenance and support costs to spend more of the budget on new technology that leads to competitive advantages.
A recent CA Technologies survey of 1,300 IT professionals found that overall, they believe two-thirds of their IT budget would be redirected at driving innovation over the next three years.
