3 Hybrid Cloud Benefits for the Financial Services Industry

It’s a phrase that you can’t help but hear in technology circles: cloud computing. From virtualizing computing resources to managing applications to storing data to hosting web services, cloud computing seems to have something to offer every organization. In fact, Gartner expects the cloud computing services market to grow 17.3 percent in 2019 alone, topping $200 billion worldwide.

But financial services businesses do not operate like every other business; there are challenges that are unique to these organizations that need to be considered to make a move to the cloud a successful one for all those involved. Because of the nature of their business, the importance of customer account data, proprietary software and strategies, and service availability, IT staff has practically no room for error. And then there is the sheer pace and dynamic nature of their operations, which constantly pushes the limits of the information technology that enables the financial services in play.

Yet IT leaders do not have to settle for an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to considering the cloud. Instead, the structure and benefits that a hybrid cloud model offers could be the best of both worlds for those in financial services.

What Is the Hybrid Cloud?

A hybrid cloud environment combines what is known as the public cloud with a private cloud, allowing applications, data, and services to be shared between the two. The private cloud offers services solely for one customer over the internet from a provider or from within a private internal network. The public cloud offers computing services over the public internet, leveraging infrastructure that is shared across a number of customers, but keeping data segregated.

In the event of high demand, failover, or other special circumstances such as testing or new product development, a hybrid cloud environment allows a business to scale up from their private cloud to the public cloud. Under this model, a business can keep their data, applications, and services secure and private, but also have the flexibility and compute power to offload basic and non-sensitive tasks to the public cloud.

Benefits of the Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud model can deliver a secure, cost-effective blended environment for financial services companies while allowing them to maintain customer security and regulatory compliance. In particular, a hybrid cloud model can deliver the following benefits.

Freeing up Resources for More Sensitive Tasks

With some services and data hosted in a public cloud and managed by a service provider, in-house IT staff are able to turn their focus away from maintenance and management tasks and toward more high-value work residing in the private cloud. Because these services are more critical to operations, IT staff with institutional knowledge and understanding of the business environment can spend more time on strategic investment activities and less on preventative maintenance.

Enabling Fast and Reliable Services

Separating computing resources in the public and the private clouds can give an organization the ability to more reliably and quickly deliver critical services to customers. With less important and sensitive services transferred to the public cloud, critical services managed in the private cloud running on dedicated servers can deliver faster performance and higher reliability.

Introducing Consumption-Based Costs

Finally, a hybrid cloud model gives an organization the ability to offload the risk and cost of maintaining a larger infrastructure to carry their peak demand. A financial services company may have a typical, steady-state demand on their resources, but certain events can cause temporary spikes in the need for resources. This increased need can spill over to the public cloud, which is managed and maintained on their behalf, eliminating the need to purchase in-house equipment that may ultimately go idle.

This ability to help control steadily growing capital expenditures can be offset with identifying and paying for critical services and typical computing resources combined with consumption-based prices for any additional resources used.

Bringing It All Together

A hybrid cloud model not only offers financial services companies the scalability, power, flexibility, and cost savings of the public cloud, but it also allows them to maintain a firm grasp on their sensitive and proprietary information in their own private environment. All this means that financial services organizations can continue to meet rapidly evolving customer demands while limiting the capital costs to make it all happen.

To learn more about how a hybrid cloud model can help your organization, reach out to the experienced team at FNTS here.