Alior Bank Modernizes Virtualization with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat OpenShift, Targeting 60% Cost Reduction

This is an abridged translation of a release announced at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on May 12, or 11:00 p.m. Japan time on May 12. Hitachi Vantara LLC, a Hitachi, Ltd. group company, announced that Alior Bank, one of Poland’s major banks, is modernizing its virtualization environment with technologies from Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat to reduce costs, simplify operations, and prepare for future business growth. By migrating hundreds of virtual machines supporting critical banking operations from a conventional virtualization platform to an environment combining Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One, or VSP One, and Red Hat OpenShift, Alior Bank expects to reduce virtualization costs by 60%. The bank also aims to improve operational efficiency and resilience through an integrated technology platform and an active-active configuration that enables systems to run simultaneously across multiple sites while minimizing downtime. As digital services evolve and AI adoption expands in the banking industry, more institutions are reassessing conventional virtualization platforms that increase costs and operational complexity. Legacy IT systems and existing infrastructure also hinder fast and efficient responses to customer needs, with research showing that 59% of banks still face challenges related to legacy technologies. Managing virtual machines and containers in separate environments adds further complexity, driving adoption of integrated platforms that simplify data infrastructure and flexibly support changing application requirements. Founded in 2008, Alior Bank is one of Poland’s top 10 banks and among the country’s most recognized financial institutions. To support continued growth and innovation, it began modernizing its technology infrastructure to improve agility, cost structure, and resilience. As a key initiative, the bank is migrating hundreds of virtual machine workloads from its existing virtualization environment to Red Hat OpenShift, while consolidating virtual machines and containerized workloads onto an integrated cloud-native platform built on Hitachi Vantara data infrastructure. Alior Bank expects payback within two and a half years. Piotr Krzak, Chief Technology Officer of Alior Bank, said the bank is working with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat to advance a new approach to virtualization that balances operational efficiency and flexibility. By moving away from traditional virtualization platforms, Alior Bank is reducing costs while building a foundation that can support applications more flexibly. He said that if the model proves effective, many companies will follow. To support the migration, Alior Bank deployed Hitachi Global-Active Device, VSP One Block, and additional VSP storage systems in an active-active configuration across multiple sites. This enables continuous operations across locations while ensuring the performance and reliability required by virtual machines and containerized workloads. The environment also incorporates Hitachi Vantara Container Storage Interface software, integrating VSP One storage automation directly into Kubernetes distributions including Red Hat OpenShift to simplify operations. This provides consistent volume management for both virtual machines and containerized workloads, while maintaining high availability through Hitachi Vantara storage configurations across geographically separated sites. Alior Bank expects concrete operational benefits from the technology refresh, including about a 60% reduction in virtualization costs, payback within two and a half years, minimized downtime through multi-site active-active operations, simplified management of virtual machine and containerized workloads, and consolidation of both workload types onto a single platform. Alior Bank has already completed deployment of the storage systems and is now migrating hundreds of virtual machines to the new platform. By consolidating workloads, the bank is simplifying application management and improving efficiency across its data infrastructure. Adrian Johnson, Chief Revenue Officer at Hitachi Vantara, said Alior Bank is simplifying management of a complex virtualization environment while maintaining the performance and availability required for mission-critical systems. By unifying virtual machines and containers on Red Hat OpenShift supported by Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One data platform, organizations can reduce operational burden, strengthen resilience, and build a consistent foundation for continuous development. With the new environment, Alior Bank is securing the scalability and flexibility needed to support future business growth while standardizing application development and deployment processes across virtual machines and containers. Through its collaboration with Red Hat, Hitachi Vantara is helping enterprises modernize virtualization environments with an open, resilient platform that offers greater flexibility and choice. Mike Barrett, Vice President and General Manager of Hybrid Cloud Platforms at Red Hat, said companies need practical ways to move away from traditional virtualization models while limiting disruption to existing operations. Red Hat OpenShift, including Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, is an industry-leading Kubernetes-based hybrid cloud application platform. By providing a consistent platform capable of running virtual machines and containers together, it helps enterprises simplify operations and advance modern application strategies.