打破大型机习惯：银行考虑云未来

Evgeniy Shkolenko via Getty Images

(图：Evgeniy Shkolenko/Getty)

CIOs at banks have long adhered to a version of the Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm. Don’t touch that thing. It’s working,” said Michael Abbott, senior managing director and global banking lead for consulting firm Accenture.

咨询公司埃森哲(Accenture)的高级董事总经理和全球银行业负责人Michael Abbott表示，长期以来，银行的首席信息官们一直都遵守希波克拉底誓言的一个变型版：“不要伤害。不要碰那个东西。它运作如常。”

Mainframe computers had been the beneficiaries of that tenet until recently, but that appears to be changing, according to recent research by Accenture. The report found a significant shift in the dominant thinking about migration away from mainframes and to the cloud within the banking sector.

大型计算机到现在为止一直是这一信条的受益者，但据埃森哲最近的研究显示，变化似乎正在出现。埃森哲的研究报告发现，在银行业内，关于从大型机迁移到云端的主导思想发生了重大转变。

Four in five of the 150 banking IT executives surveyed by Accenture plan to migrate mainframe workloads to cloud environments. Most of those surveyed report they aim to make this shift in the next two to five years.

在接受埃森哲问卷调查的150名银行业IT主管中，有五分之四的人计划将大型机的工作负载迁移到云环境。大多数受访者表示，他们的目标是在未来两到五年内实现这一转变。

A similar Accenture study carried out two years ago found that only 20% to 30% of banks had committed to moving core functions from mainframes to public cloud.

埃森哲曾在两年前进行过一项类似研究，当时的研究发现只有20%至30%的银行决定将核心功能从大型机迁移到公共云。

“They were still thinking hybrid,” said Abbott. “And hybrid is code for on-prem.”

Abbott表示，“他们当时仍然在考虑混合模式。而混合模式采取的是本地编码。”

A significant move away from hybrid models is underway, Accenture found, with only 31% of the survey’s respondents expressing a preference for splitting the workload between mainframe and cloud.

埃森哲这次的研究发现，混合模式目前遭遇大摒弃，只有31%的调查对象表示倾向于在大型机和云之间分割工作负载。

Risk aversion, regulatory compliance issues, cybersecurity concerns and the investment of time, staff, and capital required to move core functions to the cloud are pressing concerns for companies eying a more complete cloud migration. Mainframe maintenance, the limitations of on-site computing and the potential opportunity costs of a business-as-usual approach to IT have made cloud solutions increasingly appealing to banking executives.

风险规避、法规遵从等方面的考量，加上网络安全问题以及需要将核心功能迁移到云端所需的时间、人员和资金投资等因素，都是希望更全面云端迁移的业界公司所迫切关注的议题。由于大型机的维护、现场计算的局限性以及IT常态化工作的潜在机会成本等等，云计算解决方案对银行高管的吸引力越来越大了。

“Our research shows most banks are spending more on mainframe maintenance each year,” said Abbott. “And it also shows that their intention is to move much of their core operations to the cloud in a methodical way over the next five years."

Abbott表示，“我们的研究表明，大多数银行每年在大型机维护方面的支出都在增加。而且我们的研究还显示，银行高管的意图是在未来五年内有序地将大部分核心业务转移到云端。”

### **A confluence of cloud catalysts**

云计算催化剂的汇聚

For the past decade, banks took a slow and steady approach to the cloud, migrating specific applications and services, such as mobile and online banking. Core functions — record keeping, number crunching, fraud monitoring — remained on mainframes, the workhorses of the industry.

在过去的十年里，银行对云计算采取了慢慢来的稳定方法，只迁移特定的应用程序和服务，例如移动和网上银行。而记录保存、数字计算、欺诈监控等核心功能则仍然在大型机上，大型机是行业的主力军。

“Cloud is an experience not a destination,” said Barry Baker, the VP leading offering and product management for IBM Z and LinuxONE. “A lot of the largest banks in the world that we work with are on a journey around hybrid cloud.”

IBM Z和LinuxONE的产品管理副总裁Barry Baker表示，“云是体验，而不是目的地。与我们合作的许多世界上最大的银行都在展开漫游混合云的旅程。”

Advances in cloud capabilities, coupled with pandemic-induced operational disruptions, have led banking executives to a more aggressive stance on cloud migration. Prior to March of 2020, for example, call centers and the sizable IT systems supporting those operations were housed on site.

云计算能力在不断进步，加上新冠大流行病引起的运营中断，这使得银行业高管对云计算迁移采取了更积极的立场。例如，在2020年3月之前，呼叫中心和支持这些业务的大型IT系统都设在本地现场。

When pandemic shutdowns necessitated remote work, those call centers provided a lesson in what could be accomplished quickly via the cloud. In two to three weeks, banks transitioned to virtual call centers, according to Abbott. “Once the executives saw that, they never wanted to go back from that speed of operation.”

大流行病封锁下必须远程工作，这些呼叫中心就提供了一个教训：我们知道了哪些事情可以在云端快速完成。Abbott表示，在两到三周的时间内，银行就过渡到虚拟呼叫中心，“高管们一旦看到了可以这样做，他们就再也不想放弃这种操作速度回到从前了。”

At the same time, mainframe maintenance costs had made migration a more appealing option. Of the banks surveyed by Accenture, for example, 91% reported that mainframe maintenance costs had gone up over the past five years.

同时，主机的维护成本令迁移成为更有吸引力的一个选择。例如，在接受埃森哲问卷调查的银行中，91%的银行都报告说，在过去的五年中，大型机的维护成本在上升。

### **The COBOL conundrum and other cloud hurdles**

COBOL难题和其他云计算障碍

This is not the first wave of banking industry enthusiasm for the cloud. It is also not the only threat mainframes have faced as a result of technological progress.

这次其实并不是银行业的第一波云计算热情。大型机面临的来自技术进步的威胁也不是第一次。

“A few decades ago, client servers were going to take on the workload and do away with this platform,” said Baker. “Then, the world of mobile was going to take over. The world of mobile created tremendous growth for us. Public cloud is the next platform, and we embrace it. It is driving growth for us as well.”

Baker表示，“几十年前，客户服务器兴起，要接管这些工作负荷并要取代大型机平台。然后，移动世界兴起，又要取代大型机。而移动世界却为我们创造了巨大的增长。公共云是下一个平台，我们拥抱公共云。公共云也在推动我们的增长。”

Significant growth in mainframe usage – a 350% increase over the last decade, according to Baker – is just one reason IBM is optimistic about the future of the platform.

据Baker说，大型机使用量在过去十年中增长了350%，这样的大幅增长只是IBM对大型机平台的未来感到乐观的一个原因。

There are a number of psychological and functional hurdles banks will have to overcome in order to move core operations to the cloud and break the mainframe habit. A 2020 IBM report found that 44 of the top 50 banks relied on mainframe computing.

银行要将核心业务转移到云端并打破习惯不用大型机就必须克服一些心理和功能上的障碍。IBM在2020年的一份报告发现，银行50强里的44家依赖大型机计算。

One of biggest practical hurdles involves the baseline logistics of transferring years and years of data and code from one platform to another.

操作上最大的障碍之一涉及到要将多年的数据和代码从一个平台转移到另一个平台的基准物流。

“Some of these large banks are running 300 million lines of COBOL code as their core banking solution,” said Baker. “That core banking solution has been architected and developed to conform to the architecture of the mainframe, and that has taken decades to accomplish.”

Baker表示，“50强其中的一些大银行运行的核心银行解决方案涉及到3亿行的COBOL代码。这个核心银行解决方案的架构和开发就是为了符合大型机的架构，而这需要几十年的时间才能完成。”

While Baker likens full migration of core operating systems as an expensive and time-consuming process of “reinventing the wheel on a different architecture,” Abbott sees value in the investment required to move COBOL onto cloud-compatible platforms.

Baker将核心操作系统的全面迁移比喻为“在不同的架构上重新发明轮子”的昂贵和耗时的过程，而Abbott则认为将COBOL迁移到云兼容平台所需的投资是值得的。

“Move it off the mainframe into [cloud-compatible] x86 [architecture] and you’ve got an environment that’s probably 50% cheaper,” he said. Abbott also points to the advantage of being able to access GPU farms for AI/ML risk modeling through the cloud.

他表示，“将其从大型机迁移到云兼容的x86架构上，你拥有了可能便宜了50%的环境。”Abbott还提到能够通过云计算访问GPU农场就可以进行人工智能机器学习风险建模的优势。

What does seem clear from the Accenture report is that, as technology requirements grow, banks will have the opportunity to explore various options for integrating cloud-based solutions with existing mainframe architectures.

从埃森哲的报告中似乎可以清楚地看到，随着技术需求的增长，银行将会有机会探索各种将基于云的解决方案与现有大型机架构整合的方案。

Baker explained that many of IBM’s clients already use a combination of AWS, IBM cloud, and mainframe computing, emphasizing that it does not have to be an either/or proposition.

Baker解释表示，IBM的许多客户已经在用AWS、IBM云和大型机计算的组合，他强调这不一定是个非此即彼的主张。

“We want to maximize the value that they are getting from the combination of all of those things,” he said. “You are going to get that by way of a best-fit platform approach that results in a heterogeneous environment.”

他表示，“我们想让他们从所有这些东西的组合中获得最大的价值。利用最适合平台的方法就可以获得这种价值，其结果是一个多样化的环境。”

Abbott drew on a baseball metaphor. “We’re in the first inning right now,” he said. “I'm not even sure we’ve even been at bat yet, at least not fully. But the teams are lined up, and they're ready to go. So, this game is going to be played.”

Abbott用了一个棒球比喻，他表示，“我们现在正处于第一局。我甚至不确定我们是否已经上场击球了，至少全部球员没有都上场。但球队已经排队入场了，他们已经准备好了。因此，比赛即将开战。”