Westpac New Zealand and IBM renews IT deal

Renewal of contract shows the lender’s trust in IBM’s advanced technologies which create additional synergies, flexibility and choice for users.

Westpac New Zealand has renewed its strategic IT outsourcing agreement with IBM for a further five years to 2017. Under the new contract, which expands on an agreement first signed in 2000, IBM will deploy new technologies to improve customer service and sustainability, and upgrade existing systems.

IBM has prime responsibility for Westpac's key IT infrastructure services, including mainframes and midrange systems, storage, security, data centre raised floor services, data centre network services, workplace services, and workplace printing.

Under the new agreement, IBM will provide a range of advanced technologies which, together with the existing environment, will create additional synergies, flexibility and choice for users. New IBM z196 mainframes will provide greater resilience and increased capacity to support Westpac's continued growth while virtualised midrange servers and storage solutions will reduce CPU power demands and overall data centre footprint. In addition, enhanced security and data centre network technology will continue to ensure a highly secure and resilient network. The deployment of the IBM technology will support the low risk transformation to new data centre facilities.

The new IBM Agreement represents a solution that underpins the Westpac NZ IT strategy providing a robust and resilient IT platform for the future, including an upgrade of the underlying IT Infrastructure. It provides the upgrade path for Westpac's Workplace environment, ensuring the latest technology is deployed and there is a migration path to the latest operating systems. New automation tools for provisioning and managing the overall IT environment will be implemented, improving the time to market for new IT solutions in the Bank as well as ensuring the systems remain stable and secure.

The agreement, signed in September 2011, supports the bank's technology transformation program and will deliver greater consistency across Westpac NZ vendors and the Westpac Group.

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