Cloud computing grows in SA
Microsoft opens two data centres in SA while Standard Bank and TymeBank embrace Amazon Web Services
The future of banking is up in the clouds, as SA has become the continental epicentre for this new form of computing. In the past month Standard Bank announced it will shift its "strategic core banking applications" onto Amazon’s platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Microsoft opened two enormous data centres in Joburg and Cape Town. Standard Bank will "become Africa’s first bank in the cloud", says Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, which is also hosting TymeBank, Patrice Motsepe’s new digital bank. Bank Zero, the app-based bank that counts celebrity banker Michael Jordaan as a co-founder, is using IBM’s LinuxONE enterprise server. He says they partnered with IBM "as we wanted a very high level of encryption as well as the ability to scale fast. But the real saving comes from using the latest software and then using proven open-source code. We do not have to support legacy systems and can use reliable software that is accessible for free to create a revolutionary new banking system."
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