Computer giant IBM will offer a set of security controls to convince banks to migrate their customers’ highly sensitive data from on-premises to the public cloud. IBM’s coming financial services cloud aims to provide organizations with the security they need to meet the industry’s strict regulatory requirements, according to Harish Grama (pictured), general manager of the public cloud at IBM.

“If you look at the way most banks, or actually every bank, uses a public cloud … they build guard rails …from where their data center ends to where the public cloud begins,” Grama said. “But once you get into the public cloud, then it really depends on the security that the cloud service providers provide.”

Grama spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. They discussed details of the new financial services cloud, the reservations that many companies have to put confidential information in the cloud, and what IBM is doing to help. (* Disclosure below.)

Create controls for the financial services cloud

To create controls for the financial services cloud, IBM relied on its partnership with Bank of America Corp., one of the country’s largest banks. By closely assessing the needs of the institution, IBM has built controls ranging from the time that applications are being developed to the runtime, when the organization can take its applications with confidential data and place them in the public cloud, according to Grama.

“We will give you the right things, whether it’s the isolation of the control plan and the data plane or it’s our data loss-prevention mechanisms, the right auditing points, the right logging points, the right monitoring points, the right reporting, data sovereignty,” he pointed out.

The controls were defined to use Bank of America language and maps to its regulations, which should map to every bank’s edicts, according to Grama. “There’ll be a couple of extra controls here or there, but largely they’re all regulated by the same regulators, so what satisfies one bank for the most part satisfies every other bank in the U.S. as well,” he explained.

IBM’s bet is that these mechanisms will give banks automation to produce the right result and the right reports for their auditors. Other financial institutions, whose names have not yet been released, have also started working with IBM on this project.

Multicloud as the general approach

IBM’s financial service cloud is aligned with the company’s overall cloud strategy. Despite trying to thrive in niches where it already has a lot of experience, such as finance, IBM’s general approach focuses on hybrid and multicloud computing.

Companies must take a holistic view of the cloud in order to decide what should be moved to the public platform and what should remain on-premises, according to Grama. “When I build my public cloud out for IBM, I keep it in the back of my mind as I get the team to work on it, to ensure that we have the right capabilities on the public cloud, and then where it makes sense, I have the right capabilities on the hybrid side as well,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic is putting the cloud in the spotlight as companies try to adapt to new realities, like having employees working remotely. A balance is needed in this process, according to Grama.

“While you certainly just can’t close your data centers that are running your large enterprise overnight, you certainly can take a lot of stuff over there and move it to the public cloud in a meaningful fashion,” he said. “I think this is the time where they’re starting to realize that there is a time and place for a bunch of applications that can safely move and that gives them the agility and the productivity while everyone’s locked at home. And I think that’s the eye-opener here.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. Neither IBM Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE