back to article Deutsche Bank calls in AWS, Microsoft and Google to tout for cloud biz: Come in to tender, deal value unknown

Deutsche Bank has reportedly invited bids from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to pitch for cloud services and other project work as part of a major tech investment scheduled over the next two years. The request for proposal and contract award is being managed by Bernd Leukert, Deutsche's head of technology, data and innovation …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Korev Silver badge
    WTF?

    Deutsche Bank, according to Reuters – which initially revealed the talks with the three cloud vendors – is struggling with a sprawling, outdated tech infrastructure, not helped by the buys of Morgan Grenfell and Bankers' Trust in 1990 and 1999 respectively.

    Wow, the bank has still has systems from mergers that were 20-30 years ago! I assume they've been updated a bit in that time but that does seem incredible.

    1. Ken 16 Silver badge
      Happy

      You haven't working in banking, have you?

      1. EnviableOne

        I have it on good authority there is a bank in the uk still running stuff on an old ICL mainframe, that they keep running by buying the ever decreasing in number and increasing in price spares from a certain auction site.

    2. jmch Silver badge
      Facepalm

      "the bank has still has systems from mergers that were 20-30 years ago! I assume they've been updated a bit in that time"

      Erm... My guess is it probably went something like this...

      - immediately after the mergers: the quickest way to get stuff running is to build a quick-and-dirty interface to pipe data between systems. What we can't match automatically can be reentered manually. We'll migrate the systems properly later.

      - +3 years: We hadn't realised before, but there are fundamental differences between data models of the various systems, which make the 'proper' fix quite expensive

      - +6 years: Management starts to finally overcome the cost resistance and reluctantly start to explore the possibilities of a proper fix

      - +9 years: Studies are in, there is management buy-in and budget available, but all the key people have retired or left and hardly anyone remains who understands the requirements anymore

      - +12 years: Ah, fuck it, it's been working for over a decade so why change? The mess will all go away once our new global banking platform is online in the next 2 years

      - +15 years: The mess will all go away once our new global banking platform is online next year

      - +18 years: The mess will all go away once our new global banking platform is online next year

      ...etc

      1. Ken 16 Silver badge
        Trollface

        +20 years: The last person who understood the system has retired and it will now cost too much to re-engineer from scratch, lets start a POC for SAAS migration...

  3. Julz

    Bureau

    Hum, aren't these sort of cloudy things just a reincarnation of the good old mainframe bureau services of old. If so, what disruptive gadgets will come out of the woodwork to bring everything back locally in a decades time?

    1. commonsense

      Re: Bureau

      If so, what disruptive gadgets will come out of the woodwork to bring everything back locally in a decades time?

      No gadgets, just the realisation that the support offered is rubbish, turnaround times aren't good enough to meet SLAs, and that it's ultimately cheaper done properly in-house.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Given Donald Trump owes them money they want back I assume they’ll be snubbing AWS after a lengthy flirtation.

    And I assume he’ll still be leaning on them to quietly cancel the debts for national security reasons.

  5. Dinanziame Silver badge

    Santander teamed up with IBM

    the project at Santander hasn't gone as smoothly as initially expected

    Well duh. Nowadays, people should get fired for choosing IBM.

  6. rwill2

    Don't wait for your Employer to upskill for public cloud they won't!

    Don't expect your employer to do upskilling, they don't give a s**t about u - especially in big org (and banks like this one) you are a resource or body that costs money and disposable they would rather get in a new grad. I got made redundant last time round and did it all myself and got my new role in an SME as an AWS expert!

    If I was them I would start upskilling with free tier on AWS, Azure and GCP, or go contracting if they are good.

    Yes the following are hot - serverless, microservices, ioT, streaming analytics, and maybe data engineering, data science time to start you have the free courses, data sets, and laptops to do it as no one else will do it for you!

    Think about it another way - you could work and kiss ass for 40 years for a large IT company and they only need to give u £15K or £525 per year service (after 2 years) when they make you redundant - so what is the point of working for them?? The Government has made it very bad to be an employee recently - £525/year seriously!

    ttps://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/redundancy-pay

    "If you were made redundant on or after 6 April 2019, your weekly pay is capped at £525 and the maximum statutory redundancy pay you can get is £15,750"

    In memory of by neighbour M. who was recently made redundant from CSC/DXC after working for them for decades, and died a month later - all very sad.

    As for me I'm much happier in the startup world!

    1. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: Don't wait for your Employer to upskill for public cloud they won't!

      Or in my case give up the world of working in IT altogether.

      Yup I'm permanently broke, but I'm no longer miserable.

  7. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Multi-cloud?

    I thought Thou Shalt Not Use A Single Cloud Provider is the law of the land?

    Sure by all means, start with one to get your feet wet, but then spread out. Eggs. Basket.

  8. P.B. Lecavalier
    Coat

    The CIA is running their operations on the cloud. If the CIA can do it, I'm sure a bank can do it.

    Are we talking about the very credible agency that claimed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?

    I'm skeptical on the wisdom of outsourcing the heart, lungs and spine of a company. Once you commit to a particular provider, you might become their slave, forever. On the other hand I'm also very (very!) skeptical on their ability to successfully overhaul their systems internally. After decades of "it's ok do nothing" they would have all of a sudden a revelation? That would mean getting to know who does what, who can do what, who should do what, and have skills development on a continuing basis. Yikes... I'll get my coat!

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