An exclusive Q&A with NCR Corporation on data platform modernization

How automation empowers enterprises to overcome the challenges of manual migration and unlock business value faster

Here are the key highlights of the session:

Larry: Welcome Ivan. Could you start by telling us a bit about NCR Corporation’s vision?

Ivan: NCR Corporation strives to be the key enterprise technology player for bank branches, retailers, and restaurants. We want to be at the forefront of technology for ATMs, mobile banking systems, online purchase systems, point of sale systems, and much more.

Larry: Recently, there has been a lot of disruption in some of these channels, which must have created challenges for you and your customers. How did Teradata modernization help you realize your goals?

Ivan: The world is rapidly moving towards an ‘as-a-service’ economy with subscription-based business models. So is NCR. It’s therefore very important for us to be able to swiftly scale up capabilities to address growing customer requirements. For this, we need a flexible big data platform infrastructure, as well as a flexible cost structure that allows us to easily downsize our backend infrastructure in sync with business changes in specific regions. This pressing need for flexibility was a key driver for our Teradata modernization initiative.

Larry: Impetus Technologies has been privileged to be your partner for data warehouse modernization. How was your experience working with us?

Ivan: Impetus has been a tremendous partner for NCR Corporation from the start. Initially, there was a lot of anxiety on our side, as we weren’t sure if we would be able to take a legacy piece of big data infrastructure and completely transform the way it operates. But you came in, gave us the confidence that you would be able to do it, and actually did it! You brought both vision and innovation to the table.

Larry: What role did our cloud transformation accelerator, LeapLogic, play in this modernization journey?

We had close to 10,0000 BTEQ (Basic Teradata Query) scripts that had to be converted to a modern environment. While evaluating proposals by different companies, what caught our attention was LeapLogic’s ability to automate Teradata conversion to a high degree. We also spoke to one of your reference customers, a leading US bank, and they assured us that you had been able to apply and execute this technology for them. LeapLogic helped us successfully migrate from a legacy environment that was well-defined, well-established, and well-sized, to a modern platform that was more dynamic in terms of sizing and operational boundaries.

Larry: What business benefits have you realized from data warehouse modernization?

Ivan: The most important outcome of this modernization effort is the ability to manage costs in a much more flexible and dynamic way. This has had tremendous implications for us. The second benefit is the ability to manage our capacity. While earlier we were constrained by just one big platform infrastructure, we can now choose to run specific workloads on a specific platform or move certain workloads to a different platform depending on the total cost of ownership, service level agreement etc. All in all, it has been a win-win for us.

Larry: What next steps do you plan to take as you build on the success you’ve had so far in your modernization journey?

Ivan: Working in the big data space, we innovate continuously, and there is always a bit of uncertainty in terms of what’s next. We want to move further into the subscription business, which demands more elasticity in terms of both cost and functionality. We are therefore moving towards a hybrid, multi-cloud strategy. And to effectively implement this for our data infrastructure, we will work with trusted advisors like Impetus. While NCR has a number of professional services partners, I like to discuss strategic steps with the Impetus team, as I always find their advice and feedback extremely valuable.

Larry: Ivan, thank you so much for your gratifying comments and expert insights. We look forward to consistently helping great customers like you realize your vision and business goals.

Transforming traditional data warehouse, ETL, and analytics systems to the cloud helps businesses enable a unified, clear, and present view of their enterprise data. It lays the solid foundation for intelligent decision-making and growth, based on a single source of truth. Yet the path to modernization remains riddled with challenges. According to a survey by McKinsey & Company, 75% of enterprises experience cost overruns during cloud migration and 38% run behind their planned migration timeline*.

To discover how Impetus’ cloud accelerator, LeapLogic can help you automate the end-to-end workload transformation journey with lower cost and lower risk, book a demo today.

*Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/cloud-migration-opportunity-business-value-grows-but-missteps-abound