Modernizing DevOps for core banking systems

ANZ Bank (ANZ), a multinational financial institution, sought to modernize its mainframe application development and deployment processes by adopting mainframe DevOps practices. Mainframe DevOps would ensure the bank’s core systems are robust, efficient, and capable of supporting modern banking needs.

ANZ needed to rapidly adapt to changing market conditions and customer expectations. Adopting DevOps practices for mainframe application development enables faster development cycles, as well as continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), which are essential for maintaining agility.

ANZ’s mainframe DevOps transformation was driven by the need to overcome the inefficiencies of its tightly coupled Source Control Management (SCM) system and manual processes. The bank had to contend with numerous challenges to employee and customer satisfaction such as high coordination requirements, limited collaborative capabilities, non-intuitive interfaces, delayed updates, inconsistent performance, and extended outage windows. ANZ wanted to challenge the notion that mainframe applications could not possibly be aligned to contemporary tooling and ways of working.

Leaving these business challenges unresolved would likely lead to a decrease in customer satisfaction, frequent service interruptions, reduced productivity, higher operational costs, and difficulties attracting and retaining talent.

The bank felt a sense of urgency to deliver a solution for all of its critical mainframe applications. Automating repetitive, labor-intensive tasks would help reduce dependency on manual processes, improving quality and significantly reducing operational costs.

ANZ’s journey started with parallel transformations across technology, culture, and processes. First, the bank implemented developer tools from IBM Z® to help modernize its most complex and critical applications. IBM Developer for z/OS® (IDz), a robust integrated development environment (IDE), was chosen for its ability to develop and maintain IBM z/OS applications using DevOps practices. ANZ’s 200+ mainframe developers have a choice of  IDE with about 80% using Eclipse and 20% using VS Code.

The bank also utilized an advanced build system for traditional z/OS applications. The solution, IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB), optimizes and automates dependency tracking and incremental builds, enhancing DevOps efficiency and improving the developer experience. DBB’s configurable framework supports various mainframe programming languages and processing environments, such as COBOL, IMS, Db2, and CICS to meet ANZ’s specific needs. ANZ was able to extend the framework to work for Hogan via API’s.

While updating its technological landscape, ANZ was also undergoing a cultural transformation by providing employees with hands-on training, value demonstrations, and comprehensive knowledge articles. These were invaluable to gain buy-in from employees. The modernization effort was broken down into tasks that were then allocated to skill-based teams. These teams applied their experience from initial challenges and workshops to detail all the requirements. ANZ completed a proof of concept (PoC) and pilot with guidance from the IBM Software Team that works closely with customers to accelerate their DevOps transformation.  The Software Team served as trusted advisors during the modernization project, validating solution feasibility and guiding the foundational framework implementation.

Once the migration plan was established, ANZ accelerated the timeline and was able to successfully roll out the solution incrementally, starting with a major application based on Hogan. This success gave them the confidence to transform all the bank’s mainframe applications. Within 8 months, the team had successfully implemented a CI/CD framework for approximately 40 applications including 3 highly critical core banking systems, and over 1K application repositories to its Git-based version control systems.

Migrating to a Git-based SCM allowed ANZ to adopt a streamlined and automated development process. Multiple developers can now work on the same code simultaneously without the need for a check-in/check-out process, greatly improving collaboration and efficiency. The new solutions and processes also provide robust tracking and auditing capabilities, ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations—a necessity in the heavily regulated banking industry.

The adoption of mainframe DevOps has also garnered significant benefits. The bank has seen approximately 90% licensing cost reduction compared to traditional mainframe based SCM. Additionally, with automated build pipelines they can now deliver new features and application enhancements faster, improved quality and better developer and customer experiences.

Previously, ANZ had a complex process for hotfixes that used to take approximately 4 weeks effort to retrofit into the SCM and deploy into non-production environments. With the CI/CD framework, ANZ now natively uses Git as their single SCM, allowing hotfixes to be delivered directly to production environments through a controlled, simplified, and trusted pipelines. Each hotfix now only takes an hour maximum, enabling developers to direct their time and effort towards developing new features.

"The transformation to mainframe DevOps has been a game-changer for us," said Charan Ankushapur, Core Banking Engineering Lead at ANZ. He continues, "we've seen significant improvements in efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction, and we're confident that this will continue to drive business value for us in the future."

With this new development toolchain in place, ANZ is well-positioned to continue innovating and improving its core banking systems, and to stay ahead of the competition in the rapidly evolving financial industry. The bank plans to continue leveraging developer tools from IBM to drive further innovation and improvement, and to explore new opportunities for growth and expansion.

ANZ  is a leading banking institution headquartered in Australia. ANZ operates in 33 markets globally, providing financial services for over 8 million customers. With a strong focus on improving financial wellbeing, supporting environmental sustainability, and enhancing the availability of suitable and affordable housing, ANZ is committed to delivering innovative, efficient, and resilient banking solutions to its customers.