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In the rapidly evolving financial sector, competition is fierce. With the rise of fintech companies offering innovative digital services, traditional financial institutions must adapt to remain relevant. One such institution, Sicredi, one of Brazil’s largest cooperative financial institutions with over 7 million members, faced immense pressure to modernize its IT infrastructure in order to stay ahead. The company wanted to optimize its resource utilization, enable its developers to work more efficiently, and accelerate time-to-market for new products. To achieve these goals, Sicredi turned to Canonical and OpenStack and achieved substantial benefits in agility, cost-efficiency, and scalability.
The Sicredi team is the latest example of an organization implementing the OpenInfra Blueprint, an architectural pattern where infrastructure operators combine Linux, OpenStack, and Kubernetes to ensure the entire stack achieves the benefits of open source.
The Need for Change
Sicredi’s existing traditional virtualization platform was proving inadequate to meet the demands of modern financial services. Developers were spending far too much time managing infrastructure rather than focusing on developing innovative products. Cléber Alexandre Agazzi, the Head of Infrastructure and IT Operations at Sicredi, highlighted that this inefficiency was delaying product launches and stifling the company’s agility. Additionally, the company wanted to provide its 200 developer teams with an infrastructure-as-code solution that would enable automation and give them more control over the environment.
The goal was clear: Sicredi needed a solution that would help streamline infrastructure management, reduce manual intervention, and increase overall flexibility. Public clouds offered some of the features the company needed, such as infrastructure-as-code capabilities, but they came with high costs and lacked the level of control required for mission-critical financial operations. Thus, Sicredi began searching for an alternative that would deliver the same agility as public clouds but with a more cost-effective and flexible approach.
OpenStack: A Perfect Fit
After evaluating various private cloud solutions, Sicredi found that OpenStack was the best fit for its needs. OpenStack, one of the largest open-source projects in the world, offered the scalability, stability, and management capabilities through APIs that Sicredi required. It not only fulfilled the company’s technical requirements but also aligned with its desire for a cost-effective, open-source solution.
The next challenge was selecting a distribution that would provide the necessary enterprise-grade support. After evaluating several options, Sicredi chose Canonical OpenStack. Marco Palma, IT Infrastructure Manager at Sicredi, explained that Canonical offered the best combination of support, cost-effectiveness, and a skilled technical team. The team’s confidence in Canonical’s expertise and customer feedback further solidified this decision.
Transforming Infrastructure with Charmed OpenStack
With the selection of Charmed OpenStack, Sicredi embarked on its journey to transform its IT infrastructure. The transition was smooth, with the internal team initially spending several months building a non-production private cloud. With the help of Canonical, the production cloud was deployed in just one month, a testament to the platform’s efficiency and the expertise of the Canonical team.
Charmed OpenStack provided Sicredi with the tools necessary to manage infrastructure-as-code, enabling full integration with Terraform, Ansible, and Docker. This new approach revolutionized the way the company managed its infrastructure and accelerated the deployment of applications. Automation capabilities unlocked new levels of operational efficiency, allowing Sicredi to scale its environment dynamically based on real-time demand.
Key Benefits Realized by Sicredi
- Cost Efficiency: One of the most significant advantages of switching to Charmed OpenStack was the drastic reduction in costs. Sicredi has reported that its new OpenStack environment is up to three times more cost-effective than public cloud solutions. This has enabled the company to achieve better cost control while providing developers with the resources they need to innovate. Moreover, as the cloud infrastructure continues to grow, the cost-efficiency is expected to improve even further.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Charmed OpenStack’s ability to dynamically scale resources was crucial for Sicredi. The company’s developers can now create and decommission virtual machines (VMs) on demand, which allows for optimal resource utilization. Sicredi reported that over 1,500 VMs are created and destroyed daily, a level of flexibility that was impossible with their previous static environment. This scalability has also led to a 400% increase in the number of parallel jobs that the company can execute, dramatically enhancing the speed and efficiency of development.
- Agility and Automation: The shift to an infrastructure-as-code approach with Charmed OpenStack has empowered Sicredi’s development teams to operate with greater agility. Automation tools like Terraform, Ansible, and Docker have reduced the manual effort required to manage infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on more valuable tasks. The ability to create clusters and scale Kubernetes environments on demand has further enhanced the company’s operational efficiency. Previously, adding a node or upgrading a Kubernetes cluster would take hours or days. Now, with Charmed OpenStack, these tasks are automated, reducing downtime and accelerating deployment cycles.
- Improved Kubernetes Management: Sicredi also benefitted from Charmed OpenStack’s seamless integration with Kubernetes. Before the migration, managing Kubernetes clusters was a manual, time-consuming process. Now, thanks to autoscaling for Kubernetes nodes, Sicredi can manage clusters with minimal intervention. This has significantly improved the company’s ability to deliver reliable, scalable applications quickly and efficiently.
- Enhanced Developer Autonomy: One of the most profound changes brought about by Charmed OpenStack was the increased autonomy of Sicredi’s development teams. With self-service access to the cloud infrastructure, developers can provision resources as needed, reducing dependence on the IT department. This self-service model has led to faster iteration cycles and a more agile development process.
By embracing Charmed OpenStack, Sicredi has achieved remarkable improvements in cost-efficiency, scalability, and operational agility. The transition to an infrastructure-as-code approach has not only empowered its development teams but also positioned the company to stay competitive in the face of growing fintech disruption. As Sicredi continues to grow and innovate, its OpenStack environment will provide the flexibility and cost-effectiveness needed to meet the ever-changing demands of the financial sector.
In today’s fast-paced financial landscape, adopting cloud-native technologies like OpenStack is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. By choosing OpenStack, Sicredi has demonstrated how modern infrastructure can drive business success by enabling faster development cycles, more efficient resource utilization, and lower operational costs.
Check out the full case study and video created by Canonical.
Superuser
Brittany Solano
