In the past, knowis has delivered on-premises solutions to its customers, but it wanted to expand its offerings by providing a cloud-based option.

“With an on-premises solution, there are setup and maintenance costs involved and potentially a long setup time,” says Christian Sternkopf, Vice President, Product Management at knowis. “And some of our prospective customers do not have the resources to buy the hardware, set up the infrastructure and maintain it.”

To reduce costs and deployment times for its customers, knowis wanted to find a scalable, cloud-based and fully managed database to use as part of its isfinancial platform. The database needed to provide the security that’s essential for the banking industry, as well as meet the requirements of the European Banking Authority (EBA).

With the Db2 on Cloud solution, knowis can offer its customers a fully-managed solution that helps reduce setup and maintenance costs. In the past, when knowis approached a prospective customer about the isfinancial platform, the discussion would have to include arrangements for setting up and supporting an on-premises infrastructure. But with the Db2 on Cloud offering, knowis can now offer a cloud-based deployment option, which has helped shorten the sales cycle.

The cloud option has also increased the company’s potential customer base. Previously, knowis focused on selling to larger organizations because they had the infrastructure, skills and resources to run an on-premises platform. But with the Db2 on Cloud solution, the isfinancial platform is available at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and requires no maintenance from the customer, which brings it within reach of smaller banks and financial institutions. “It’s a great opportunity for us to have a second deployment option and address smaller customer segments in the financial market,” says Sternkopf.