Capital market companies have been one of the more cautious adopters of the cloud. However, increased pressure to reduce costs, improve margins and realize greater efficiencies are forcing today’s institutional investing firms to move their critical applications and data into the cloud. Also, increasing commercial and regulatory requirements for running on demand risk analytics requires the scalable processing and storage capacity of cloud platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Before moving the cloud from the periphery to a mainstream IT strategy, capital market firms need to:
- Address the security and privacy risks associated with cloud computing infrastructures to protect clients’ information and assets
- Meet regulatory requirements, including keeping datasets and analytics processing private and “in country” as needed
- Reduce the dependency on custom/legacy systems and applications, requiring investment firms to immediately see the real value in migrating those valuable IT assets to the cloud
- Increase their trust in cloud-based operations, management and control in terms of ensuring resiliency, high availability and disaster recovery capabilities
The maturity of private, public and hybrid cloud platforms, specifically around security and compliance, is a catalyst that has fostered cloud adoption in the capital market sector. Equinix and AWS have been working with capital market organizations to prove how cloud computing, specifically hybrid cloud, can help them implement cost-saving measures and increase performance, scalability and security.
AWS Direct Connect enables private, direct and secure access to AWS in 16 global markets on Platform Equinix™, including its most recent availability in Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers in Munich, Germany, São Paulo, Brazil and Warsaw, Poland. AWS Direct Connect, as deployed via a dedicated network connection or via the Equinix Cloud Exchange™, bypasses the public Internet and ensures private connectivity and full integration between AWS cloud services and business applications and data.
AWS Direct Connect on Platform Equinix
Enabling a Hybrid Cloud that integrates AWS Direct Connect on Platform Equinix allows enterprises to maintain private clouds and manage sensitive data, while leveraging public cloud services within Equinix’s secure IBX data centers worldwide.
The benefits include:
- Faster time-to-market for capital market solutions
- More accurate and timely data analytics
- Increased confidence in complying with security, privacy and data sovereignty regulations in global markets
- Improved customer quality of experience (QoE)
- Greater than 99.9999% uptime
Use Case – Fast access to hybrid cloud IT services
A leading global provider of risk management and insurance brokerage solutions needed to deliver a superior user experience to its more than 10,000 global employees accessing its IT services. The company needed to re-architect its IT operations for peak usage requirements and then scale them down during less active times.
It developed a high-speed, low-latency hybrid cloud interconnection infrastructure that integrated AWS Direct Connect and Equinix Cloud Exchange on Platform Equinix. That fast and secure interconnect fabric reduced the number of network hops between its global locations and the networked resources that its users consumed from AWS (via AWS Direct Connect) and other cloud and SaaS providers (via Equinix Cloud Exchange).
As a result, the company’s IT organization is delivering 5x to 100x more network bandwidth with lower latency and enabling a much higher Quality of Experience (QoE) for its employees. It is also leveraging more cost-effective connections to its IT resources, including those delivered in hybrid cloud environments, resulting in 40% less overall costs.
The expansion of AWS Direct Connect cloud services in Equinix global data centers enables financial services firms worldwide to deploy hybrid cloud infrastructures that incorporate public cloud services safely, with consistent performance and customer QoE.
Read our latest AWS Direct Connect expansion news, “AWS Direct Connect Service Now Available at Equinix in São Paulo.”
And to learn more about AWS and digital payments read “Harnessing a AWS Hybrid Cloud Architecture in the Digital Payments Ecosystem.“
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