Navigating the future: Storebrand's innovative IT modernization journey

OSLO, Norway, October 28, 2024 - Kyndryl, the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider, today announced that Storebrand, one of Norway's largest financial services providers, has enlisted Kyndryl's support to modernize and run its mainframe operation. As part of the project, Kyndryl will migrate Storebrand's mainframe IT infrastructure to Kyndryl's state-of-the-art Twins Data Center, offering the financial institution greater efficiency, environmental sustainability, resilience and modernization support.

Since 1767, Storebrand has been instrumental to the Norwegian financial landscape, managing assets worth over NOK 1000 billion (EUR 85 billion) today. The company provides comprehensive services to corporate, private and public clients. Storebrand's longstanding commitment to innovation, sustainability and social responsibility has cemented its status as an industry leader and a champion of equality and environmental stewardship.

"Our vision for the mainframe as a key element of our future hybrid IT infrastructure involves integrating it with the latest in cloud and artificial intelligence, ensuring we operate with a focus on security, agility, efficiency and sustainability. Kyndryl's unique blend of mission-critical expertise, innovative solutions and strategic alliances with hyperscalers establishes them as our preferred partner," said John Kristian Sandvik, Senior Vice President of Digital Corporate, Storebrand. "Choosing Kyndryl goes beyond merely selecting a mainframe services delivery partner. It signifies alignment with a proactive innovator dedicated to reducing costs, maximizing business value, advancing our strategic objectives and helping us nurture the skills we will need in the future. Through our newly established Mainframe Academy, we educate the next generation of mainframe talent with the support of Kyndryl." 

Modernizing mainframes in an increasingly hybrid cloud landscape is a major challenge. It involves integrating a technology with decades of history into a broader suite of modern platforms and applications. This integration aims to use the mainframe's strengths in performance, reliability and security while harnessing the flexibility and agility of the cloud for complementary tasks.

To inspire Storebrand's modernization, Kyndryl and Storebrand have introduced additional non-traditional skills programs and consultancy in the form of innovation sessions. These sessions further support Storebrand's upskilling of large groups of mainframe system administrators, application developers and architects and provide them with unique and in-depth mainframe skills training to explore the latest innovations and opportunities on the mainframe.

This project is part of a larger training initiative: the establishment of Kyndryl's Mainframe Academy, which aims to support the industry with mainframe skills, considering the skills gap, by combining traditional mainframe education with modern IT capabilities and world-class facilities. Core skills in COBOL, DB2 and MQ are being paired with advanced IT skills and in-depth training from a single provider to support the next generation of IT and mainframe talent. Storebrand has played a major role in establishing Kyndryl's Mainframe Academy. 

By migrating its mainframe IT infrastructure to a z16 shared mainframe environment in Kyndryl's Twins Data Center in Belgium, Storebrand is best positioned to enhance application performance, optimize costs with a transparent, consumption-based pricing model and further its ESG objectives by leveraging the site's certification under the EU Code of Conduct for Data Center Energy Efficiency and its 100% renewable electricity sources. 

"Modernizing the mainframe is an essential task for businesses to future-proof their IT environment and meet profitability and growth goals. Wherever they are on their transformation journey, businesses need to have a robust strategy for modernizing mainframes as part of an increasingly hybrid cloud world," said Beda Grahn, Managing Director, Kyndryl Nordics. "Our engagement with Storebrand reflects our shared commitment to advancing IT infrastructure and sustainability in the industry, and driving more business value from their IT."