• Gareth Williams, CEO & Founder at YellowDog


• 28.06.2019 01:15 pm
Cloud , Digital transformation

The huge proliferation of sensitive data, increasing technological complexities and a continually evolving regulatory landscape mean data handling is more difficult than ever in the financial world. Cloud-computing has, to some extent, provided solutions and eased some of the pressures of working with big data but there is still a long way to go. Multi-cloud is gaining traction, with standard suite offerings from a growing number of cloud providers tackling many hurdles. Simultaneously, this is presenting new challenges.

The problem of data management for financial institutions

The amount of data that financial institutions need to process is larger and more complex than it has ever been – and the rate of growth is accelerating. Tragically, according to Gartner, the average server utilisation in a big institution like a bank is as low as 5-15%.  Worse still, 30% of all servers installed in data centres are turned on and then never used. Institutions should be operating at near 100% server utilisation constantly if they want to effectively deal with the exponential growth in data without spiralling costs.

As well as this, IT decision-makers are increasingly turning to multiple cloud vendors in order to overcome machine availability shortages and develop solutions for the wide variety of processes which create the sheer volume of data that is being churned daily. This is resulting in siloed data landscapes under the umbrella of singular enterprises, meaning that IT departments are having to manage unconnected cloud environments while processes are becoming native to specific cloud providers. The dual challenge of siloed landscapes with under-utilised compute is causing real cost and data-management headaches for institutions. All financial institutions, whether it be high-street banks, insurers or pension funds are impacted by this.

There are increasingly prescriptive guidelines, tighter deadlines, and more pressure from internal and external stakeholders to process data faster.  Finding a way of streamlining and accelerating data processes in a manageable and efficient way in financial institutions has become business critical.

Integrating processing functions

This is where intelligent cloud management platforms offer a solution. It is not a controversial claim to affirm that cloud has the potential to transform operations and help big institutions run more efficiently, saving time and money. Yet, this potential is not currently being realised.

Depending on the infrastructure available, institutions run processes through different sources of compute. Some may be limited to only using compute from existing hardware while others have tried private clouds, and some may have begun bursting to the public cloud. Others may even need a hybrid solution abstracting both cloud and existing hardware.

Cloud for cloud’s sake doesn’t solve anything – there must be a defined strategy. If the strategy is wrong, or worse still is notable by its absence, it can be very costly. A tendency of IT decision makers is to solve challenges rapidly with a suite of offerings from cloud providers, rather than working to an overarching cloud strategy. This, in a company with a lack of transparency between departments, is a contributing factor to why we are seeing siloed cloud processes becoming more common in big enterprises.

The priority for financial institutions must be the enablement of processes to run on multiple sources of compute by adding an abstraction layer if they want to find big efficiency savings.

Cloud of the future

Moving away from siloed cloud functions requires innovation within cloud itself. It is not enough for cloud to provide the firepower. It needs is to be intelligent, able to understand where and when to use compute, and predict how long these processes will take, while always acting within a tight governance framework. Cloud has become integral to enabling the digital transformation of companies, but strategising the use of cloud services is what will drive the difference between those gaining a competitive edge and those falling behind.

In a world where data is the new currency, predictive and intelligent cloud integration and management software will streamline data operations, save time, and save Financial Institutions millions of pounds every year.