CBA vows 95 percent public cloud as it culls 25 percent of apps

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia will embark on its biggest infrastructure and enterprise software renewal in around five years, stating it will now seek to move its current public cloud base of around 25 percent to a whopping 95 percent as the bank tightens the screws on operating costs.The move, revealed by chief executive Matt Comyn during the CBA’s interim results on Wednesday, aims to catapult the bank’s current public cloud base of just 25 percent to almost total public cloud as it seeks to retain digital dominance of the local financial sector.At the same time, Comyn indicated that the CBA will seek to cull around 875 applications from bank’s current portfolio of 3000 - around 25 percent - as Australia’s largest institution continues to integrate and consolidate disparate systems and offload non-core business under its ‘Simpler Bank’ model. The revelation of the new public cloud target comes just days after Comyn very publicly buddied-up to Microsoft during the launch of the bank’s wholly-owned X15 Venture start-up ‘builder’ play, with a pre-made video of Comyn and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appearing instantly after the launch.Comyn said while the CBA needed “the best [people] internally it also wanted to “work with the best partners, both domestically and internationally.Despite being an earlier adopter of public cloud under former chief information officer Michael Harte, it is known that views over the relative value of public cloud, especially for core applications versus build-your-own diverged, especially around AWS’ offerings.