Moving your trading platform to the cloud is viewed by many technical specialists as a true game-changer. It’s taken a while, but capital market operators are starting to consider the advantages of the cloud; even for major vendor trading technology platforms. 

Cloud-enabled technology can deliver numerous efficiencies that positively impact your budgets, improve the performance of your trading applications, and free up your time, allowing you to redirect your energies towards more alpha-generating activities.

Why on-premise infrastructure is becoming obsolete…

Around the world, conventional data centres are closing, as organisations of all stripes are waking up to the benefits of cloud technology and confidently moving away from outmoded ways of operating.

In too many cases, legacy data centre infrastructure is:

• Expensive to set up

Requiring significant up-front capex for purchasing, housing and setting up hardware and server banks, along with ongoing maintenance, upgrades and security expenses.

• Limited in scalability

Often struggling to accommodate sudden spikes in demand or rapid business expansion. In downtimes, it can’t be managed to alleviate costs.

• Difficult to maintain

Needing a dedicated team of IT professionals to handle hardware maintenance, software updates, security patches, and troubleshooting.

• Surprisingly vulnerable

With varying risks including physical damage – fire, theft, flood – along with hardware failures, and cybersecurity threats that are often due to poor implementations of basic security checks. Managing these risks calls for substantial investments in redundancy mitigation, disaster recovery solutions, and robust security measures.

While it is true that there has been a reluctance among some financial institutions to move to the cloud, that outlook is now changing as the cloud’s many business-critical advantages can no longer be ignored. It is also true that some institutions have had poor experiences as they have approached the cloud like any other data centre, and failed to properly exploit the benefits that the cloud can bring. For example:

• Cost-efficiency

On-premise infrastructure requires substantial upfront investments in hardware, software, and maintenance. By contrast, the cloud operates on a pay-as-you-go model, allowing businesses to scale resources based on demand and to only pay for what they use. This cost-effective approach removes the need for expensive and time-consuming hardware refreshes, and reduces operational expenses, ultimately leading to significant cost savings.

• Scalability and flexibility

Migrating to the cloud is easier than you think, and once set up, the scalability of cloud computing is unparalleled. Businesses can easily scale up or down their resources to accommodate fluctuating workloads, ensuring optimal ongoing performance and cost efficiencies. Additionally, cloud services offer unparalleled flexibility, providing employees with easy access to data and applications; enabling remote work and enhancing productivity.

• Operational Excellence

Using cloud services simplifies management, enhances efficiency, and reduces the operational burden associated with conventional data centres. These services automate routine tasks, such as patching, scaling, and monitoring; enabling highly complex trading platforms to be managed with less effort.

• Enhanced security and compliance

Contrary to common misconceptions, the cloud offers robust security – operating multi-layered systems based on the principle of delivering ‘security in depth’. And no wonder: cloud providers invest heavily in best-in-class security, encryption technologies, and compliance protocols to protect sensitive data and guard against online threats. Additionally, public clouds comply with a broad range of industry standards and regulatory requirements, ensuring that organisations can easily meet their compliance obligations.

Moving forward with the cloud

Name a category, and the cloud outperforms traditional data centres every time. The evident shortcomings of data centres should be a clear signal for financial institutions to adopt flexible and agile cloud solutions for their trading platforms.

For Sophis and Fusion Invest, Phi’s cloud-enabled Platform-as-a-Service offers the quintessential cloud benefits of scalability, agility, productivity and security.

Phi Partners has a long track record of supporting complex capital markets institutions; we are the only specialists to combine deep experience of Sophis and Fusion Invest, with world leading Public Cloud expertise.

It’s time to think beyond managing declining infrastructure and move to a secure, compliant and fully optimised model that unleashes the true capabilities of your teams.

Like the sound of the numerous benefits of the cloud but concerned about how you’ll manage the migration? Let us put you at ease. Our new service includes everything; from business case development and cloud adoption strategy to best-practice cloud architecture design, automated testing and annual upgrades, with 24/7 support, and robust service governance.

For financial services organisations, migrating to the cloud isn’t merely about following trends; it’s about embracing a far more efficient approach to your trading technology, enabling a transformative leap forwards.

Visit https://www.phipartners.com/sophis-fusion-invest-paas/ to learn more about Sophis / Fusion Invest PaaS, and discover what it can do for you.