How PostFinance scouts for new IT trends and implements them successfully

This spring in London, a PostFinance IT engineer delivered a talk to more than 700 specialists at Europe’s largest cloud native conference. His topic was Talos Linux, an immutable operating system that is being tested within PostFinance’s IT infrastructure as part of a pilot project. Interest was high, because it’s unusual for a financial institution in Europe to experiment with this technology. 

Pioneering decisions

“We’re constantly identifying new IT technologies early on, testing them and adapting them – if they help us in our product development,” explains Cedric Bösiger, Solution Architect in the Platform & Infrastructure Solution Team. To take one example, PostFinance was an early adopter of the Kubernetes world. “In 2016, we experimented and built a great deal with it. Today, we operate around three quarters of all applications on these technologies. We are still benefiting from the fact that we made that pioneering decision back then.” This spring in London, a PostFinance IT engineer delivered a talk to more than 700 specialists at Europe’s largest cloud native conference. His topic was Talos Linux, an “immutable” operating system that is being tested in the PostFinance IT infrastructure as part of a pilot project. Interest was high, because it’s unusual for a financial institution in Europe to experiment with this technology. 

Technologies in lifecycle management

Unlike in the past, the Platform and Infrastructure teams now use a tech radar system. “It makes it clear to everyone which technologies we work with – regardless of their status. Whether it’s technologies we’re just experimenting with or technologies that are being phased out,” says Johny Lippuner, Head of the Windows Server & Cloud Team within the Infrastructure Delivery Team and Tech Radar Specialist.

“The tech radar helps us to identify which technologies are relevant to us, whether we need to promote them or which technologies are too old and generate significant costs for us,” adds Cedric Bösiger. This also promotes knowledge transfer within the Infrastructure teams and prevents different teams from working on the same new product at the same time. 

From Spotify example to in-house solution

The idea of the tech radar originally came from Spotify, where it serves as an overview tool for software development technologies. PostFinance has adapted this concept for its own infrastructure – with a clear focus: not to map the entire technology world, but precisely the tools, frameworks, platforms and hardware that are relevant in its own teams.

Technology data as code

A key feature of PostFinance’s infrastructure tech radar is that all data is available in machine-readable YAML format – and not in formats such as Word, Excel or Confluence. “This makes it easier for our employees to enter data, because they can use the tools they already work with on a daily basis,” explains Cedric Bösiger.

This structured form has a clear advantage: the information can be evaluated immediately and flexibly. For example, a single command can be used to create a complete list of all PCI-DSS-relevant technologies for the next audit. And it’s just as easy to check which technologies have remained in the same status for three years. Tasks that used to involve painstaking manual work in tables can now be completed with a simple click.

New IT technologies on the infrastructure tech radar

Which exciting IT technologies can be found on the tech radar? We’ll briefly present four examples. 

Example 1: Chaos Monkey – Adopt status

A tool from the field of chaos engineering that deliberately causes disruptions in the system. The aim is to increase the resilience of software and architecture so that systems can identify errors themselves and partially resolve them. PostFinance’s use of this technology in a production environment is innovative for a financial institution.

Example 2: Crossplane – Adopt status

A modern framework that makes cloud-native principles such as orchestration and automation usable even in traditional “legacy” environments. Instead of administering systems individually, entire “herds” of systems can be managed simultaneously. This is known as cattling, and it bridges the gap between the old and new IT worlds.

Example 3: Renovate – Adopt status

A bot that automatically monitors and updates software dependencies. It checks whether external components have been changed, updates the code independently and automatically creates change requests. This keeps the software landscape current without developers having to update it manually.

Example 4: Talos Linux – Trial status

An “immutable” operating system that is not configured but is completely rebuilt with every modification. This “throwaway principle” increases security and automation and is ideal for orchestrated environments. PostFinance is an early adopter of this concept.

Unhindered innovation

But the tech radar is much more than a practical technology directory with useful additional functions. It’s also a driving force for innovation, because it consciously opens up the experimental space for new technologies, breaking down barriers that previously had a restrictive effect. In the past, all regulatory and documentary requirements had to be met during the pilot phase. This involved a great deal of effort and deterred employees from even testing new approaches. “Beforehand, a lot of things literally went under the radar,” says Johny Lippuner.

Now, the process is more flexible: technologies can be tried out during the Assess phase without needing to meet all maturity requirements right away. Documentation, knowledge transfer and compliance are required only when it becomes clear that a technology should be moved into the Adopt phase. “And the product owners receive our support during all of this. Our goal is to ensure that the barriers to experimenting with new technologies and bringing them into productive use are kept as low as possible,” says Cedric Bösiger.

The tech radar thus also creates a bridge between the tech and process worlds. The teams need to be able to work freely with new technologies, but key architecture, security and governance requirements also have to be met. The tech radar ensures the necessary process coverage.

Simple processes

To ensure that the tech radar remains up to date at all times, two simple processes are used.

1. Onboarding process: new technologies are introduced by the product owners at weekly meetings, and presented and discussed with other teams. Questions are answered directly, and potential synergies are identified.
2. Maintenance process: takes place three to four times a year in the form of workshops involving all product and application owners. In these rounds, existing entries are checked, conflicts are resolved, roadmaps are coordinated, and technologies are moved to Hold status if necessary. 

Technology scouting: everyone’s a scout

Before a technology can be included in the infrastructure tech radar, it must first be discovered. New trends are mainly scouted within the teams themselves. Employees frequently encounter new technologies in their everyday work when trying to solve specific problems. They look for solutions independently, review the market and select approaches that appear promising. PostFinance also supports this proactive ethos by participating in trade fairs and community events – such as Cloud Native Foundation events, which the company itself co-organizes or sponsors. This means that new impetus is continually being injected into the company.

The next paradigm shift?

As is the case with many tools, the employees who use the tech radar play a crucial role. Talos Linux is a good example of this. “Our engineer raised the issue because he was confident that it would benefit PostFinance. He continued working on it with his product owner and team colleagues and ended up giving a talk in London to 700 people − about an innovative operating system that could herald a major paradigm shift.”