Atruvia, IBM Partner to Modernize German Banking with Hybrid Cloud and Automation

Atruvia AG, the digitalization partner of the German Cooperative Financial Group, and IBM have announced a long-term collaboration that paves the way for sustainable and state-of-the-art IT platforms for the banking of tomorrow. 

Atruvia will use IBM z17, which was announced earlier this year, as a cornerstone to support its mission critical operations including the core banking system. 

Modernization and hybrid cloud integration are core to Atruvia's strategy to provide leading services and an outstanding experience for its users. This mission is supported with the full strength of IBM’s software portfolio and key infrastructure for their use to advance automation, data management, and operational efficiency.

Operational Autonomy

At the heart of the collaboration is meeting Atruvia’s need for control and technological interoperability – core pillars of its strategic focus are:

• Data and Security: With HashiCorp Vault and IBM storage solutions, Atruvia ensures high standards in the secure management, encryption, and storage of sensitive banking and customer data— always fully controlled in its own data centers.
• Infrastructure: By deploying IBM z17 in its data centers, Atruvia provides banks with full control over business-critical systems — supported by state-of-the-art security features such as confidential computing and quantum-safe encryption, as well as integrated AI acceleration and advanced automation.
• Cloud: With Red Hat OpenShift as the basis for hybrid cloud scenarios, Atruvia ensures flexibility and independence from individual cloud providers. IBM offers solutions such as Cognos for bank reporting and Planning Analytics for the Sales Cockpit on OpenShift. In addition, IBM enables developers to design their own software and operate it confidently both in the data center and in the private and public cloud – always based on open standards.
• Vendor independence: With IBM Turbonomic, technological dependencies are reduced by intelligently optimizing and dynamically distributing workloads. At the same time, Apptio ensures cost transparency and allocates dependencies on manufacturers in terms of value creation.
• Innovation: Through access to IBM's research and development sites in Germany and Switzerland, Atruvia gains direct access to the latest technology with a clear regulatory framework. This enables Atruvia to take advantage of innovations at an early stage, actively shape them, and at the same time offer local compliance.

Sustainability and Efficiency

In addition to strengthening Atruvia’s operational autonomy, the collaboration also contributes to Atruvia's sustainability ambitions: IBM Z is designed to reduce power usage and operational energy demands while delivering enterprise-class performance, reliability, and security. In addition, IBM Turbonomic, Apptio and HashiCorp Terraform are designed to ensure optimal use of applications and infrastructure resources. At Atruvia, the use of IBM Turbonomic alone has eliminated the need for 1,000 physical servers, about 20%, reducing energy consumption and the associated carbon footprint.

Cooperation with a Long-term View

With the multi-year agreement, Atruvia and IBM are creating a stable framework for planning security and new opportunities to apply innovation – from application modernization to automation and AI-supported services. With this cooperation, IBM also underlines its clear commitment to Germany as a location: The newly opened technology campus in Ehningen brings together the headquarters, the research and development center, and the first IBM Quantum Data Center in Europe, in one location.