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A proof-of-concept project for data centre backups overseen by MUFG may spell the end for prolonged banking outages. (Image: Shutterstock)
For some customers, cash is still king – or, at least, the payment medium of last resort. According to new data released by UK Finance, more Britons are now hoarding coins and notes than ever before, with similar findings reported in Portugal and Spain. The reason? Consumers are afraid that the complex web of payment systems undergirding debit and credit card transactions – a framework that has made paying for everything from a meal deal to a new car easier than at any time in human history – will suddenly and catastrophically fail when least expected.
There’s wisdom in these woes. Since 2023, UK banks alone have witnessed 803 hours of system outages, equivalent to 33 days of lost business. Recovery from these farragoes is a complex and expensive undertaking, often slowed by poor synchronisation between corporate data centres. MUFG, however, may have found the solution. Back in March, Japan’s largest bank was a consulted party in a migration experiment led by NTT DATA using an All-Photonics Network (APN) to successfully migrate live banking systems between data centres 70 km apart – all with less than a second of downtime.
Unlike conventional networks, which synchronise data centres by converting optical signals to electric signals for each optical line – which, inevitably, leads to latency problems – MUFG theorised that the so-called Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) technology used by NTT Data, one of the founders of the IOWN Global Forum in 2020, could allow it to avoid conversion and, therefore, lag. Two assessments were undertaken: a live migration of a virtualised financial database application across multiple data centres within a 70km radius and another over 2,500km. Tracking critical parameters such as data transfer time, MUFG saw that the IOWN APN kept system downtime below one second.
“By synchronising data in real-time, data consistency and availability are ensured, allowing any services to recover from outages,” says Masayoshi Namba, a specialist in the bank’s Industry Research and Creation Division. “This minimises service interruptions and helps maintain customer trust. Additionally, it can reduce the operation cost.”
By using IOWN technology, MUFG and NTT Data were able to achieve data centre synchronisation across significant distances near instantaneously. (Image: Shutterstock)When distance is no object
MUFG’s trial of photon technology was a proof-of-concept (PoC) exercise rather than a response to a real-world problem with its banking systems, so the technology is yet to be tested in extremis. Nevertheless, Namba says that the results illuminate new opportunities for post-bank outage systems recovery – beginning with cost efficiencies.
“Conventional optical transmission networks require expensive, full-function equipment installed at each location, leading to increased costs,” says Namba. “[An] APN can be optimally deployed depending on function and scale, keeping costs low. APNs also consume less power, as [they] only process light.”
That kind of real-time data synchronisation could change the game for financial institutions. Given that geographically dispersed data centres have been used extensively in the industry to address some of the risks to service reliability, the ability to migrate data across large distances could prove crucial in delivering disaster-resistant financial systems. So, could the photon-based technology of the APN potentially replace the typical planned maintenance windows required for data migration and make near-seamless system synchronisation the norm, even during peak hours?
Not quite yet, explains Masayoshi. “This is not meant to replace existing technologies or become the sole means of ensuring reliability,” he says. “Rather, it is expected to increase the options for balancing stability and flexibility, and building better designs for IT infrastructure. But financial institutions can leverage IOWN technology to ensure data protection and consistency, meeting regulatory requirements, and real-time data synchronisation can help prevent service interruptions by providing high reliability to meet customer expectations.”
Implementing this technology across a bank’s entire data centre estate would require careful and detailed consideration, as there could well be issues of compatibility with existing IT infrastructure. Nevertheless, the collaboration between user companies and technology firms within the IOWN Global Forum is fostering many discussions around wider implementation.
For now, the next step is to conduct more PoC exercises to verify the effectiveness of the technology. NTT and MUFG are already committed to collaborating on developing specific implementation models using IOWN technology. The future for disaster recovery is bright – bright enough, perhaps, to persuade customers to retrieve their cash from underneath the mattress and put it back into the digital banking system.
