Oracle signs multi-year database modernisation deal with Deutsche Bank to support its cloud plans

Financial services giant Deutsche Bank is continuing to flesh out its hybrid-cloud strategy by enlisting Oracle to modernise and migrate its database systems to a cloud-friendly off-premise environment. 

The multi-year collaboration will see Deutsche Bank migrate most of its Oracle Database estate to an on-premise version of the Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer environment, which is designed to house applications that are ill-suited to moving off-premise for the time being. 

According to Oracle, this setup will provide a “dedicated platform to support and scale the bank’s existing mission-critical systems and services”, which includes its trading, payments processing and regulatory reporting workloads.

“Migrating its systems to Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer will enable Deutsche Bank to consolidate existing critical applications on a single platform while complying with its data residency requirements and significantly reducing operational costs,” said Oracle in a statement.

“Oracle’s service can run in Deutsche Bank’s current datacentres, as well as in future cloud colocation sites, minimising latency while supporting the shift of applications to the cloud.”

In addition to the database modernisation project, the two firms have agreed to bring together their respective engineering and technology teams so they can collaborate and bring to market new financial products and services.

This arrangement is similar to another multi-year technology tie-up that Deutsche Bank announced in July 2020 with Google Cloud, which was geared towards supporting the firm’s in-house digital transformation ambitions, while paving the way for it to roll out new services for customers.

“Data is fundamental to how we manage our operations, anticipate the needs of our customers and design new products and services,” said Bernd Leuker, chief technology, data and innovation officer at Deutsche Bank. “Our collaboration with Oracle to modernise our databases will play an important role in our overall technology transformation.

“Our applications supported by Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer will benefit from a platform with the flexibility to adapt and scale critical services at speed, as well as derive better data insights. In the process, we will simplify and modernise our technology environment, save the bank significant costs and reduce energy consumption through consolidated servers.”

Juan Loaiza, executive vice-president for mission-critical database technologies at Oracle, said the major players in the financial services industry are under pressure to innovate, as disruptors enter the market and consumer expectations change.

“Now more than ever, financial services organisations like Deutsche Bank must quickly adopt new technologies and maintain speed-of-innovation while also meeting their data security and locality requirements in an always-changing regulatory environment,” said Loaiza.

“Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer is designed to help Deutsche Bank achieve this balance, and we are looking forward to partnering with one of the financial sector’s most progressive digital innovators as we help shape the next generation of financial services and business models.”