A Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) survey explores users’ expectations of cloud computing.
Financial services firms are giving cloud computing a mixed review in a new Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) survey as many respondents expect the cloud will have a positive impact upon their jobs but they are split on whether Wall Street will fully embrace the much-hyped technology.
More than half of the 375 qualified survey participants say that cloud computing will have a beneficial outcome for them while the rest say that cloud’s impact upon their jobs will be neutral. Only a minority of respondents foresee a negative impact.
In fact, the survey also reveals that a surprising majority has been utilizing cloud computing for a variety of key purposes with 16 percent of all respondents using the cloud for disaster recovery/business continuity (DR/BC) projects. Nearly the same amount of respondents, or 15 percent, is utilizing the cloud for email systems. The cloud has also been employed for human resources, reconciliation, settlement and clearing systems.
Savings via the elimination of infrastructure and maintenance costs appears to be the driver for much of the interest in cloud computing. A third of all firms surveyed say that achieving these savings is a compelling aspect of cloud implementations.
As firms review systems and applications, there appears to be a growing consensus about what will be kept separate from the cloud. Front office trading transactions, risk management systems and operational risk controls are not likely to ascend to the cloud. Internal software development and testing tasks are also likely to stay put.
Beyond mission critical systems, other factors are challenging the spread of cloud computing such as security and privacy hurdles. The regulatory environment and questions about the reliability of cloud computing implementations are also giving users pause. If firms do decide to go forth with cloud solutions, they will definitely be leaning toward private deployments of clouds rather than public implementations.
Another near-certainty is that cloud computing is by no means a foregone conclusion for firms. When asked if ultimately Wall Street will fully embrace the cloud, half of all respondents say the industry will do so while the rest thinks otherwise.
What follows are the survey questions and the top responses from all participants, which includes securities firms, vendors, service providers and other firms. We have also broken out the results according to the buy side, the sell side and banks.
Click here to download the full survey results.
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