How a leading US consumer financial services company strengthens its core infrastructure for zero disruption with HCLTech
Overview
When resilience became mission-critical, our customer, a leading consumer financial services company, fortified their virtual infrastructure, automated performance management and set new standards for secure, compliant operations at scale.
For our client, reliability is not just a technical goal; it’s the foundation for their customers’ trust. Every day, millions of transactions flow through their digital backbone of servers, virtual machines and storage environments. As their services expanded and customer interactions grew rapidly, they recognized an opportunity to strengthen availability and compliance across their evolving technology landscape.
The Objective
To sustain growth and elevate service excellence, the financial services major set out to modernize its virtual infrastructure, enhancing resilience, efficiency and security. In partnership with HCLTech, they embarked on a large-scale transformation to strengthen their core, optimize operations and deliver seamless experiences across their financial ecosystem.
The Challenge
Driven by rapid business growth, our customers’ dynamic IT landscape expanded to support new opportunities and innovations. To fully harness this scale, they saw the potential to enhance system resilience, unlock the full value of their monitoring, automation and backup ecosystem to enhance visibility, performance and operational resilience.
By reimagining the management of their diverse operating systems, databases and hardware environments, the leading financial services major aimed to create a unified, proactive and secure foundation, one that could anticipate issues, accelerate response and evolve seamlessly with the pace of their business.
The Solution
The relationship between us and the customer was anchored in one shared principle: resilience by design. Together, we mapped out a transformation journey that combined engineering precision with operational foresight.
Building a resilient foundation
More than 7,000 virtual machines were migrated to a stronger Availability Zones (AZ) infrastructure, eliminating single points of failure and ensuring continuous uptime across 8,000+ servers.
Turning visibility into control
Employees unlocked the full potential of VMware Aria, integrating endpoints and creating unified dashboards that provided real-time views of performance, compliance and capacity. Automated alerts, reports and analytics empowered teams to manage operations proactively rather than reactively.
Optimizing storage and backup performance
With data volumes spanning 12 PB of SAN, 1.5 PB of NAS and 20 PB of backups protecting over 12,000 objects, the migration to an enhanced data-protection architecture improved space utilization, accelerated backup performance and simplified management across the estate
Streamlining lifecycle governance
A dedicated Project Management Office (PMO) was established to track and coordinate multiple lifecycle projects, from operating system and database upgrades to end-of-life decommissions and compliance checks. This governance model brought structure, accountability and transparency to every stage of IT modernization.
Automating security and compliance
The infrastructure spanned more than 1,200 ESX hosts, 10,000 virtual machines, 13 PB of storage and over 7,000 software-defined firewall rules managed through NSX. Automated vulnerability reviews and on-demand remediation were implemented across all systems, reinforcing security posture and compliance alignment. These components required coordinated upgrades aligned with release cycles, all while carefully managing business risk in a complex, multi-platform environment that also included Citrix VDI and AWS WorkSpaces.
The Impact
The engagement delivered a stronger, smarter and more controlled infrastructure environment that transformed the company’s IT operations.
- Uninterrupted service: Migration to AZ architecture reduced disruption risks, ensuring consistent availability for business-critical operations and smoother experiences for customers.
- Proactive insights: Centralized dashboards and automation provided real-time visibility into performance, capacity and compliance, enabling quicker responses to potential issues.
- Reliable data management: Optimized backup architecture and processes improved the efficiency, speed and reliability of critical data protection operations.
- Consistent governance: A PMO-led model ensured accountability, structured processes and smooth execution of IT initiatives, indirectly improving service quality.
- Enhanced security: Continuous vulnerability assessments and automated remediation minimized risks, giving customers confidence in secure interactions.
- Streamlined operations: Coordinated upgrades and lifecycle management reduced operational friction, enabling faster, more seamless service delivery.
Conclusion
With a resilient and intelligent infrastructure at the core, our customer now delivers trust, speed and security in every customer interaction. By embedding automation, governance and real-time visibility, they have not only ensured business continuity but also created the foundation to innovate and elevate customer experiences continuously.
