CIOZone.com - Professional Network for CIOs and IT Professionals

By Mel Duvall

Frustration over the length of time it took to roll out new applications and services started Wachovia down a path three years ago to seek out ways to reduce IT complexity.

With the backing of senior management, the IT team at the nation's fourth largest bank has experimented with a number of leading-edge technologies and concepts such as Web services, virtualization, and processor arrays, to achieve its vision of a more responsive, flexible, and energy-efficient IT infrastructure.

Now, as the bank prepares to move into its new headquarters in downtown Charlotte, N.C., in the summer of 2009, it is using the opportunity to put many of the lessons learned into action. Among the most promising is a computing platform that will make use of a combination of virtualization technologies to deliver better performance to the bank's traders and simplify the process of upgrading or repairing servers.

"We've tried to push a number of things forward and to be more innovative so that ultimately we can compete better," says Jacob Hall, head of platform design and data center technology for Wachovia's investment banking group. "You don't get there overnight—it's an evolution. But we think we're headed in the right direction."

The push in the right direction came one day as Hall was venting frustration with his boss, chief technology officer Mark Cates, over the length of time it took to roll out new applications at the bank. Hall wanted to deploy an event messaging service which would provide employees with a common area of interest, such as those using a particular managed service, with a simple means to share information, be notified of changes, and post questions. At the time, employees were doing this through a hodgepodge of technologies, including email lists and collaboration software, but Hall wanted to have a single standardized method.

"I asked Mark, 'When is it worthwhile to adopt a new technology,' because I saw lots of groups adopting new technologies that competed with one another, essentially providing the same functionality," recalls Hall. "You know—we would have 15 different reporting tools basically providing the same reporting capability."

Cates' reply served as a catalyst for Hall in his drive to reduce IT complexity at the bank. "He said, 'Jake, if you bring in one thing and remove nothing, there's really no value. If you bring in one thing and remove another, there may be some value. But, if you can bring in one thing and remove two things, there may be significant value for us,'" recalls Hall.

"That really focused our attention on the fact that we have so many opportunities to remove two or more things and replace it with one."

That simple premise has coalesced into a three-pronged strategy largely enabled by virtualization technologies:

• The first is to provision first. Rather than order new hardware or software, Wachovia first attempts to use existing infrastructure through reuse or by making better use of capacity through virtualization technologies.
• The second aim is to achieve high availability by default. Instead of purchasing backup and continuity technology, Wachovia now aims to build redundancy into its architecture.
• The third target is to be Green by Design. Hall says by provisioning first, by achieving high availability by default, and by using virtualization technologies to ensure hardware is being more fully utilized, Wachovia can save power through design.