Alior Bank Targets 60% Reduction in Virtualization Costs and Streamlined Operations with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat OpenShift

Hitachi Vantara, the storage, infrastructure and hybrid cloud management subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., announced that Alior Bank, one of Poland’s leading banks, is modernizing its virtualization environment with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat to reduce costs, simplify operations and support future growth.By migrating hundreds of virtual machines supporting critical banking workloads from legacy virtualization platforms to Red Hat OpenShift on Hitachi Vantara’s Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One), the bank expects to lower virtualization costs by 60% while improving operational efficiency and resilience through a consolidated technology platform and a multi-site active-active architecture designed for near-zero downtime to support continuous operations.

As banks evolve digital services and become more AI-driven, many are reassessing traditional virtualization platforms that can increase costs and add operational complexity. In financial services, legacy IT systems and infrastructure continue to limit how quickly and affordably banks can meet customer demands, with research showing that 59% of banks still struggle with legacy technology challenges. Managing separate environments for virtual machines and containers can further complicate operations, prompting organizations to adopt unified platforms that streamline infrastructure and support evolving application needs.

Founded in 2008, Alior Bank has grown into a top 10 bank and one of the most recognized brands in Poland. To support its strategy for continued growth and innovation, the bank set out to modernize its technology infrastructure to improve agility, cost structure and resilience. A key initiative involved migrating hundreds of virtual machine workloads from existing virtualization environments to Red Hat OpenShift while consolidating virtual machines and containerized workloads onto a unified cloud-native platform supported by Hitachi Vantara infrastructure, with Alior Bank anticipating a full return on investment within two and a half years.

“We are breaking new ground with Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat by taking a new approach to virtualization that supports both operational efficiency and flexibility,” said Piotr Krzak, CTO, Alior Bank. “By moving beyond traditional platforms, we are reducing costs while creating a more flexible foundation for our applications. Once we have proved the value of this model, we believe many organizations will follow.”

To support this transition, Alior Bank deployed VSP One Block and additional VSP storage systems in a multi-site active-active configuration using Hitachi Global-Active Device. This architecture enables continuous operations across sites while supporting the performance and reliability required for both virtual machines and containerized workloads. The environment also incorporates Hitachi Vantara container Storage Interface (CSI) software, which integrates VSP One storage automation directly into Kubernetes distributions, including Red Hat OpenShift. For Alior Bank, this enables consistent volume management for both virtual machines and containerized workloads, including support for highly available storage across metro cluster distances.

Alior Bank expects that its technology transformation will deliver measurable operational benefits for the bank, including:

• Approximately 60% reduction in virtualization costs
• Full return on investment within two and a half years
• Near-zero downtime enabled by active-active architecture across sites
• Simplified management of virtual machines and containerized workloads
• Consolidation of virtual machines and containerized workloads onto a single platform

Alior Bank has successfully implemented the storage systems and is currently migrating hundreds of virtual machines to the new platform. By consolidating workloads, the bank is simplifying how applications are managed while improving efficiency across its infrastructure.

“Alior Bank is simplifying the management of a complex environment while maintaining the performance and availability required for critical systems,” said Adrian Johnson, CRO, HitachiVantara. “Bringing virtual machines and containers together on Red Hat OpenShift, supported by Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One data platform, reduces operational overhead, strengthens resilience and creates a more consistent foundation for ongoing development.”

The new environment also provides scalability and flexibility to support future growth, enabling Alior Bank to standardize application development and deployment processes across both virtual machines and containers. Through its collaboration with Red Hat, Hitachi Vantara helps organizations modernize virtualization environments using open, resilient platforms that provide greater flexibility and choice.

“Organizations are looking for practical ways to move beyond traditional virtualization models without introducing disruption,” said Mike Barrett, VP and GM, hybrid cloud platforms, Red Hat. “Red Hat OpenShift, which includes Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, is the hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, providing a consistent platform to run virtual machines and containers together. This helps organizations simplify operations while supporting modern application strategies.”