Deutsche Bank, a global provider of financial services including retail and private banking, corporate banking, lending, and asset management, partnered with Google to modernize its operations by transitioning to Google Cloud. This cloud strategy marked a shift toward innovation, breaking down internal silos and increasing developer productivity. To scale cloud resources, the bank’s cloud engineering team adopted automated provisioning, enabling platform teams to become key facilitators of cloud consumption.
Led by Keith Kemsley, head of cloud services delivery, and supported by engineers Jeremy Crawford and Thomas Chalmers, Deutsche Bank transitioned from a legacy infrastructure model to a Cloud Operating Model. This new approach emphasized autonomy while maintaining strong security controls. Early experiments with Azure and open-source tools like GitLab and HashiCorp Terraform laid the groundwork for the bank’s current cloud strategy, which allows autonomous teams to use shared cloud services.
A critical component of this shift was the introduction of pre-built landing zones, allowing developers to safely provision Google Cloud resources. By leveraging HashiCorp Terraform Enterprise and its policy-as-code framework, Sentinel, Deutsche Bank created standardized infrastructure modules, promoting security and autonomy. Within months, the bank had fully operationalized its first landing zone.
The partnership with HashiCorp was key, with over 1,500 engineers trained and more than 200 applications deployed. As a result, Deutsche Bank successfully accelerated cloud adoption and plans to explore further HashiCorp solutions to enhance its cloud operations.
