Guest blog post by Jhoan Checho, Sales Director, Financial Services Practice, FiberMedia Group
It seems the “early adopter” tags are going fast when it comes to implementing cloud based services in many arenas. Meanwhile, everyone else maintaining a sideline stance needs to understand and appreciate the competitive advantage that goes with the strategic decision. Reality is – cloud services have been in play for some years now, and in some arenas, early adopters have charged forward with a wealth of business advantage. Howard Tolman, Managing Director at Cloud Trading Technologies Ltd. offered some thoughts in an article that appeared in eForex, January 2012, Mythbusters.
Common concerns include reliability, scalability and security
Mr. Tolman addressed some relevant concerns in his comments from the perspective of the FX trading environment. Leading the thought process are concerns for high availability and reliability, especially in mission critical trading systems. Technical reliability in the form of cloud computing mechanisms are largely regarded as more reliable than internal systems. There is redundancy built-in as well as the benefit of highly maintained hardware and software applications, which drive the holy grail of uptime.
The efficiencies open to institutions large or small is exactly what makes the agile premise so appealing. Cloud techniques benefit organizations of all sizes, and allow IT resources to focus on IT processing issues instead of server updates and the like. Scalability, to “massive” demand, is achieved through agile provisioning of virtual servers and storage. This methodology utilizes infrastructure resources based on real-time demand. Especially in the financial trading side where volumes are highly volatile, demand needs change rapidly. This makes the appeal of provisioning cloud services as demanded more efficient than owning, configuring and maintaining. Consider the value of paying only for what you use, as you use it…
Cloud security stirs ongoing discussion, though stringent standards have evolved to support an extremely strong level of protection. As Mr. Tolman pointed out, The United States Air Force has placed confidence in current capabilities, which should suffice for most organizations.
The loyalty of a trusted business partner, combined with the cost-savings of an outside vendor
Gartner analysts identified IT costs amassed in financial institutions run approximately 250% higher than non-banking institutions. With a gap that significant …there exists opportunity. Of course, cost-savings is a primary driver of cloud based implementations. No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, your IT Team’s time is free to concentrate on your business’ continued innovation and growth. Perhaps one of the more interesting points made by Tolman comes in the fact that nearly one third of a financial institution’s staff is typically involved in IT. Imagine the benefit of having a larger percentage of an institution’s associates focused on core revenue producing activities… Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions enable cost-effective cloud networking solutions that provide virtualized bandwidth, colocation, storage and back-up facilities, on-demand. Further, financial services institutions would do well to ensure that their partners in cloud computing can support their unique needs, delivering an efficient, flexible, cost-effective model. Options of dedicated/private or public hybrid clouds, aligned with access to market data providers, electronic news feeds and low latency performance are all features that can readily be configured and deployed in the name of significant competitive advantage.
FiberMedia knows that reliability, scalability, and security are the key foundations to delivering fully customizable, cloud based computing and on-demand storage solution options. The company also recognizes that budgets to manage all aspects of a business are being constrained. For 36-months, FiberMedia offers a guaranteed rate-lock for its services. This provides revenue assurance for companies as they are challenged with managing budgets to ensure business growth. With static costs in-tow, access to a competitive service provider landscape and proximity to the trading engines that propel your business, FiberMedia’s cloud computing service solutions can be the anchor you need to keep your business on the competitive edge.
Find out more by contacting saleshelp@fibermedia.net today.
