HSBC builds its DevOps by Leveraging AWS

The HSBC banking institution has opted for the Amazon Web Services public cloud to complete its DevOps range. In particular, they must enable it to improve the efficiency and duration of its development.

Promote agile work and DevOps approach in the business. This was the goal of Marco Pera, HSBC Bank Platform Manager, by launching a project to move some of the development and testing of applications to the Amazon Web Service public cloud.

The initiation of such a process can be very confusing and complex for any international company, particularly for those that have to take into consideration a large number of regulatory aspects. "We are already using the cloud for development and testing as we embrace new tools and technologies. It is an evolution towards an agile way of working, integration and continuous development in a DevOps approach, "Marco Pera told our colleagues at Computerworld UK during the AWS Summit held last week. November) in London. "It's not easy, because HSBC is a huge, very complex company."


Implementation at controlled risk

According to the director of platforms, "one sees well when a company moves away from a traditional practice to create and deploy its applications. The development teams are different from the operational teams. It is therefore necessary to make progress on several levels ". This is why, according to Marco Pera and HSBC, it was necessary to give developers access to tools adapted to any modern enterprise. Earlier this year, HSBC set up a specific pilot project with very ambitious deadlines. "We decided to launch our project using some of Amazon's services because such an implementation presented relatively little risk," explained Marco Pera. "We have also set up several teams of products, uses and platforms. They rightly demand to operate using the latest tools and approaches, and in this case to agilely deliver their products and services. "

Although he did not give precise details on the products developed on the HSBC platform, Marco Pera suggested that the adoption of the public cloud was part of a broader objective, both to maintain competitiveness Of the platform than to experiment new things and offer new services more quickly to customers. "At the present time, we can cite among the advantages simplicity, reproducibility, and also the ability to create development environments in a semi-automated way," he said. "We also see that the quality of development is increasing and that the process is more transparent. In addition, we were able to put in place a more frequent quality control of the production code, which we could not do before, "he said. "All of this allows our teams to create and develop much more quickly and in a more controlled manner. Not only is the quality better, but the product is put on the market faster. "

Regulatory aspects not to be underestimated

To achieve this, HSBC has had a number of challenges. In particular, as a global company, the bank had to take into account the regulatory aspects of all the markets in which it operates. "We are very respectful of these regulations, and once again, for the moment, we are only using development and testing environments," he said. "We will resolve these issues as we move forward and put these services into production."