Google Cloud Platform Case Studies ATB Financial's IT Transformation: Migrating SAP to Google Cloud

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	ATB Financial's IT Transformation: Migrating SAP to Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform

ATB Financial's IT Transformation: Migrating SAP to Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning Cybersecurity & Privacy - Cloud Security
Applicable Industries	Finance & Insurance National Security & Defense
Applicable Functions	Procurement Product Research & Development
Use Cases	Chatbots Tamper Detection
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Data Science Services
Challenge	ATB Financial, a financial institution with $55.1 billion in assets, was seeking to enhance its IT environment and improve client experiences. Despite having a loyal client base, ATB faced growing competition from larger banks and FinTech companies. To stay competitive, ATB launched a 'Work Reimagined' initiative, powered by Google Workspace, to improve collaboration and client service. However, the bank wanted to further modernize its operations by migrating from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to SAP S/4HANA for improved performance and more dynamic data models. Additionally, ATB planned to move from SAP Bank Analyzer to SAP Finance and Risk Data Platform (FRDP) to consolidate applications on a HANA-based data platform. The challenge was to manage the increasing data storage and compute power needs, which were difficult to handle on-premises. Read More
About Customer	ATB Financial is an Alberta-built financial institution that is a catalyst for economic growth in its province. The company was established in 1938 to help Albertans through tough economic times. Today, ATB’s more than 5,000 team members deliver exceptional experiences to nearly 800,000 clients through its many branches and agencies, 24-hour Client Care Centre, four entrepreneur centres, and digital banking options. ATB has been a pioneer among financial institutions, focused on providing the best service to Albertans and working tirelessly to make banking better. It was one the first financial institutions to send a payment using blockchain technology and the first full-service financial institution in North America to successfully facilitate payments using chatbots. Read More
Solution	ATB decided to pursue a cloud-first strategy built on Google Cloud. The bank used SAP-certified Compute Engine VM configurations with scalable NFS file storage to provide a storage cluster between multiple zones and regions. It performed a lift, shift, and upgrade of its SAP environment to Google Cloud, bringing in Google Cloud Professional Services to build a blueprint for production environments for SAP Accounts Payable, Adaptive Server Enterprise, and HANA. The teams used Cloud Deployment Manager to deploy a scalable SAP S/4HANA system that meets SAP support requirements and adheres to both SAP and Compute Engine best practices. ATB also moved its analytics data repository from SAP Business Warehouse to BigQuery, giving the bank a serverless, cloud-based data platform to power fraud-detection analysis and machine learning models for credit scoring. Dataflow provides a fully managed service for stream and batch processing, while Dataprep by Trifacta allows ATB to visually explore, clean, and prepare data for analysis and other services supported by machine learning. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning

Cybersecurity & Privacy - Cloud Security

Applicable Industries

Finance & Insurance

National Security & Defense

Applicable Functions

Procurement

Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Chatbots

Tamper Detection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Data Science Services

Challenge

ATB Financial, a financial institution with $55.1 billion in assets, was seeking to enhance its IT environment and improve client experiences. Despite having a loyal client base, ATB faced growing competition from larger banks and FinTech companies. To stay competitive, ATB launched a 'Work Reimagined' initiative, powered by Google Workspace, to improve collaboration and client service. However, the bank wanted to further modernize its operations by migrating from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to SAP S/4HANA for improved performance and more dynamic data models. Additionally, ATB planned to move from SAP Bank Analyzer to SAP Finance and Risk Data Platform (FRDP) to consolidate applications on a HANA-based data platform. The challenge was to manage the increasing data storage and compute power needs, which were difficult to handle on-premises.

About Customer

ATB Financial is an Alberta-built financial institution that is a catalyst for economic growth in its province. The company was established in 1938 to help Albertans through tough economic times. Today, ATB’s more than 5,000 team members deliver exceptional experiences to nearly 800,000 clients through its many branches and agencies, 24-hour Client Care Centre, four entrepreneur centres, and digital banking options. ATB has been a pioneer among financial institutions, focused on providing the best service to Albertans and working tirelessly to make banking better. It was one the first financial institutions to send a payment using blockchain technology and the first full-service financial institution in North America to successfully facilitate payments using chatbots.

Solution

ATB decided to pursue a cloud-first strategy built on Google Cloud. The bank used SAP-certified Compute Engine VM configurations with scalable NFS file storage to provide a storage cluster between multiple zones and regions. It performed a lift, shift, and upgrade of its SAP environment to Google Cloud, bringing in Google Cloud Professional Services to build a blueprint for production environments for SAP Accounts Payable, Adaptive Server Enterprise, and HANA. The teams used Cloud Deployment Manager to deploy a scalable SAP S/4HANA system that meets SAP support requirements and adheres to both SAP and Compute Engine best practices. ATB also moved its analytics data repository from SAP Business Warehouse to BigQuery, giving the bank a serverless, cloud-based data platform to power fraud-detection analysis and machine learning models for credit scoring. Dataflow provides a fully managed service for stream and batch processing, while Dataprep by Trifacta allows ATB to visually explore, clean, and prepare data for analysis and other services supported by machine learning.

Impact #1	The migration to Google Cloud has significantly improved ATB's operational efficiency. SAP application performance immediately improved following the migration, with interest calculations for hundreds of thousands of clients now processed in minutes, compared to hours previously. Month-end close and daily reconciliation processes are likewise accelerated, helping ATB do more and move faster. Client-facing banking applications are available 24/7/365, with no downtime windows required. The bank has also started to bring in team members with new skills, including DevOps professionals who helped improve performance through server, application, hypervisor, and storage scripts. The move to Google Cloud helped prepare ATB for the significant challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, putting it in a position to help its clients and Canadians at large through hard financial times.

Impact #1

The migration to Google Cloud has significantly improved ATB's operational efficiency. SAP application performance immediately improved following the migration, with interest calculations for hundreds of thousands of clients now processed in minutes, compared to hours previously. Month-end close and daily reconciliation processes are likewise accelerated, helping ATB do more and move faster. Client-facing banking applications are available 24/7/365, with no downtime windows required. The bank has also started to bring in team members with new skills, including DevOps professionals who helped improve performance through server, application, hypervisor, and storage scripts. The move to Google Cloud helped prepare ATB for the significant challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, putting it in a position to help its clients and Canadians at large through hard financial times.

Benefit #1	Improves performance, availability, and scalability of core banking apps
Benefit #2	Calculates interest for hundreds of thousands of clients in minutes versus days
Benefit #3	Accelerates month-end close and daily financial reconciliation processes improved 2x through data consolidation

Benefit #1

Improves performance, availability, and scalability of core banking apps

Benefit #2

Calculates interest for hundreds of thousands of clients in minutes versus days

Benefit #3

Accelerates month-end close and daily financial reconciliation processes improved 2x through data consolidation

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Overview

ATB Financial's IT Transformation: Migrating SAP to Google Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit