How would a move to the cloud make it easier and/or more profitable for Fintech to provide
large volumes of selected data to its clients?
Due to the following reasons, migrating to cloud shall make business for Fintech easier and more
profitable:
No scarcity of technology:
Cloud technology is widely used in the IT industry for various purposes. There are numerous use
cases for different clients in which cloud technology has been used to migrate, transfer and
secure data for analytical purposes. As mentioned in the case, there are 15 different cloud
providers in the market.
Realtime analytics and reporting:
As Fintech used cleansing process for easier data integration, it made the reporting and analysis
much easier for the mandated “Three- tier system” data. This real time analytics can improve
security and maintain compliance with all alcohol regulations and make the payments universally
easier.
Scalability:
The stepwise roll out plan of data integration into cloud is more feasible considering an increase
in transactions. Thus, cloud technology is flexible to be scaled across different parts of
organization. This also prevents large up-front investments thus saving money for the company.
No-dependency on Infrastructure:
As the whole integration of infrastructure on both the customer and Fintech sides are handled by
cloud providers, there is no need to bother about customization of platforms for end-users.
What technical challenges does Fintech face in offering a new service?
a. Permanent Data loss: Due to more and more customer accounts migration all at once,
there is a good chance of data loss.
b. Shared technology, shared dangers: As the technology is shared by lots of end-users,
Fintech employees and third-party providers, there is a shared pool of computing
resources like networks, servers, storage, applications and services. Thus, if there is any
danger to any of these resources, it can affect the whole ecosystem.
c. Broken Authentication
d. Data breaches
What business challenges does Fintech face in offering a new service?
•
Adoption of non-familiar technology by its employees and stakeholders
•
Management might not find it justifying investing in new technologies as the customer
requirements may vary.
•
The business lost due to downtime during migration.
2. Assume Joe Kwo must choose a cloud service provider. Based only on information provided
in the case, which provider should Kwo choose? Why? You will need to compare and contrast
the three providers' offerings in detail and prepare to discuss technical and business implications
of their similarities and differences.
There are few similarities amongst Amazon, Google and MS Azure. Few are mentioned below:
Similarities:
•
Clearly defined resources for training
•
Broad range of service support
•
Batch computing
•
Cloud native applications
•
Certifications for employees
•
Development support
Differences:
Property
Amazon
Google
Microsoft
Pricing
Lowest price
Equal to Amazon
Expensive
Configuration
Simple
Flexible
Difficult
Data loading
Third party tool
required
Familiarity for
employees
Not so familiar
In memory database
Not so familiar
Employees use
Microsoft products
3. For each provider (AWS, Google, Azure) identify specific risks, and prepare to offer specific
suggestions for launching, running, and managing the new service if that provider is chosen.
Cloud provider
MS Azure
Google
Amazon
Risk
Employees could find
it difficult to
customize
integrations into the
customer’s IT
environment due to
pre-configurations
No fixed specifics on
volume discount as
we don’t know how
customers will use it
Third party tools
might not have
proper
documentation,
unresolved bugs, and
no support
Suggestion
Roll out research
plans to find ways of
customizing in order
to reduce expenses
and for long-term
benefits
Quantify the
discounts offered by
google and calculate
cost savings as the
number of customers
increase gradually.
Scrutinize for third
party tools that are inbuilt in amazon
4. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the provider evaluation process described in the
case. What useful steps were taken? Do you see any problems.
Strength
Basic service features
Technical considerations
Monthly pricing
Evaluation of leaders in cloud service
providers
Weakness
Same use cases
Same data used
No dummy client data used for testing
Effective steps:
•
•
Cloud service provider compared under same criteria
Evaluation principles were previously defined