Predicting IT incidents in Financial Services

Post • 3 min read
As we’ve mentioned in previous blogs, one of the UK’s biggest banks, TSB, learnt the hard way earlier this year when it came to protecting their highly valuable systems from IT failures. The BBC coined the term ‘technology meltdown’ after 2 million customers of the bank lost access to their online banking services. Since then, a second ‘meltdown’ has occurred, and TSB’s CEO has stepped down.

Banks have been slow to move legacy systems to cloud

Banks and FSIs around the world have been slow on the uptake to modernise infrastructure and move legacy systems to the cloud. The complexities that surround moving large amounts of secure data, constantly changing market dynamics, and a need to shift company culture (such as moving to a more agile way of working) is tantamount to redesigning an entire industry. The problem is that this failure to move forward and be relevant has proved costly, and regulatory services have made the FSIs pay out large and easily preventable fines. Anuj Saxena, Head of FSI at Nordcloud, wrote in his blog that financial institutions often plan for highly available service operations and don’t consider potential failures. But one of the ways these businesses can improve their operational resilience is implementing automated tools and processes in order to recover from these potential incidents. Engaging with a Managed Cloud Services provider is the start of the solution.

Planning for failure by implementing a well-oiled machine

At the risk of sounding negative, planning for failure is the key to keeping systems up and running. Employing a DevOps function like the team at Nordcloud who have the experience in automating end to end deployments, operations & recovering cloud infrastructure, allows for flexibility and innovation, and creating runbooks and playbooks allows the teams to compare and match certain standards. FSIs need to become operationally resilient so they are not held back when an incident happens. Having a ‘well-oiled machine’ that will be able to respond to incidents quickly and agily will improve this resilience. But what’s the point of having this ‘holy-grail’ of automation unless you have someone who knows how to manage it?

A dedicated Managed Services Provider

Cloud experts within Nordcloud have experience in knowing what to monitor & what thresholds to configure out of the box, ensuring that problems are identified earlier and solved quicker. Our team uses an advanced adaptive (outlier detection), automated full-stack monitoring and instrumentation platform to enable a 360-degree view of a business’s infrastructure, ensuring that potential issues are identified and resolved before they become an issue. This automated response means reactions are faster, and human error is eliminated. In the same sense, developing a comprehensive runbook promotes standardised operating procedures which can be used repeatedly, allowing you to move to market faster. Businesses should also organise regular ‘Game Days’ where failure is simulated, and runbooks and playbooks are tested to ensure that in the event of failure, response and resolution is well rehearsed and therefore fast. Nordcloud's team of experts can manage this and other day to day operations, helping our customers meet the regulatory compliance they require. IT time is valuable and generally scarce and your department should be focussed on projects that improve your company’s bottom line. FSIs who engage with Managed Cloud Service providers will be able to save sizeable amounts of money on potentially avoidable fines, and in the meantime make sure their customers’ online experience is not affected.   Realise all the benefits the public cloud has to offer FSI

Cloud computing is on the rise in the financial services - are you ready?

Download our free white paper Compliance in the cloud: How to embrace the cloud with confidence, where we outline some of the many benefits that the cloud can offer, such as:

  • Lowered costs
  • Scalability and agility
  • Better customer insights
  • Tighter security
Nordcloud ninja
NordcloudLinkedInNinja
Related topics

Get in Touch.

Let’s discuss how we can help with your cloud journey. Our experts are standing by to talk about your migration, modernisation, development and skills challenges.

Ilja Summala
Ilja Summala LinkedIn
CTO
Ilja’s passion and tech knowledge help customers transform how they manage infrastructure and develop apps in cloud.