Eagle Investment Systems won Best Cloud Computing Solution for its Eagle Access private cloud system. FTF News spoke to Mike Fitzgerald, chief information officer for Eagle, about the win and other matters.
(Editor’s note: Eagle Investment Systems has won many awards over the years via the 2018 FTF Technology Innovation Awards. This year it was voted Best Cloud Computing Solution for its Eagle ACCESS private cloud system. FTF News got time with Mike Fitzgerald, the chief information officer at Eagle, to delve into why the company chose to be a cloud pioneer and what is next for the company’s successful leap. In his role, Fitzgerald led the development of the Eagle ACCESS platform, which the vendor reports has become the preferred platform for new client engagements. Fitzgerald oversees the organization’s worldwide IT and operational systems and services. Beyond Eagle ACCESS, he is also responsible for the global services strategy, design and operations for all corporate technologies.)
Mike Fitzgerald, chief information officer, Eagle Investment Systems
Q: Why did Eagle decide to be a cloud computing pioneer at a time when the prevailing conventional wisdom among financial services firms, 10 years ago and until only recently, was against the cloud?
A: It was client driven.
The clients had a problem in that they lacked resources. At the same time, Eagle identified that its platform could scale through engineering. Many of the tools that you might associate with the cloud today weren’t available. We engineered many of them and now operate as an open source platform to accelerate interoperability.
We recognized this trend early on and made some ambitious bets that panned out well.
Our parent company BNY Mellon also benefited from our innovation in this area.
Our agility and speed — from software development to hosting mission-critical solutions — delivers material efficiencies to BNY Mellon and the bank’s clients and allowed the business to see value much faster than through on-premises solutions.
Q: What single factor helped the cloud gather acceptance in asset management?
A: There is no single catalyst. It’s a combination of three drivers: business and operational value via an accelerated time to market; dynamic co-creation opportunities; and the desire to adopt new capabilities never seen before.
Given the pace of innovation, it’s a continual struggle for the back and middle office to stay ahead of the change curve. New system implementations take time and resources.
The cloud, alternatively, creates a service model that enables faster development and continuous delivery of new or enhanced software.
Asset managers also need the ability to co-create, but they don’t have the resources or capabilities at their fingertips to execute. The cloud also provides access to new and different ecosystems. Eagle’s API [application programming interface] framework will empower clients to extend their technology or leverage existing APIs to build modern applications specific to their business needs.
So, all of these factors have been influential.
Eagle Investment Systems team after accepting FTF Awards 2018 – Best Cloud Computing Solution
Q: How does Eagle’s collaboration to build a cloud-based data management platform that will be offered via Microsoft Azure fit into Eagle’s overall cloud strategy?
A: The collaboration will create an extensible platform to add new data and help clients respond to continuously changing data needs.
Effectively, the platform can be used by clients to drive, articulate, and monitor their investment decisions. It also brings to bear sophisticated analytical solutions to help improve the decision-making process of the investment and sales and distribution teams.
In terms of how this fits into our overall cloud strategy, this effort is completely aligned to Eagle’s data-centric approach.
Through Azure, we’re able to offer a trusted platform that provides reliable data and data solutions. It will provide transparency in data ownership and stewardship. And the platform will offer predefined workflows and monitoring tools to support the data management process. High resiliency will be native to the platform to provide more data, more frequently in a globally consistent and quickly accessible manner.
Ultimately, though, it’s about giving our clients transportability and control of their data. This is consistent with the industry trend in which asset managers generally are looking to reduce reliance on a particular vendor. They’re seeking control over the consumption of that data and desire a true solution versus an extract.
Q: When will the offering from the Microsoft Azure-Eagle collaboration be available to clients?
A: Clients can engage with Eagle now to deploy our latest software in Azure.
As for our new data management solution, we are already co-creating with clients and making tremendous progress.
We’re not ready to announce dates at this time, but I would emphasize that if a client is in the process of developing their data management strategy, they should contact us today.
Given our initial success, we are expanding our co-creation program.
Q: Was providing additional IT support always a part of Eagle ACCESS or did it become clear after your private cloud was launched?
A: Initially, we had our heads down, optimizing the infrastructure solely for the application, so IT support wasn’t introduced until much later.
We recognized over time that the terms ‘support’ and ‘operations’ meant different things to different clients.
We were effectively building snowflake services. About eight years ago, clients came to us to discuss improving IT scale and optimization. CIOs asked us to define the standard and demonstrate how to scale and improve the economics. It was a partnership and turning point for Eagle ACCESS.
We haven’t looked back, in Eagle ACCESS, 100 percent of our strategic investment focuses on client optimization and business scale.
We are doing some exciting projects utilizing AI [artificial intelligence] and automation, reinforcing cybersecurity, and — my personal favorite — expanding our ecosystem with other fintech firms and cloud providers, such as Azure.
The ability to differentiate through the API construct and simplify through partnerships is brand new.
It’s going to be a real a differentiator for Eagle in the marketplace.
Q: Why are public cloud offerings becoming more acceptable to financial services firm?
A: They have done an incredible job in building trust through transparency on cybersecurity, access controls, data protection and workload segregation. Providers are going beyond matching industry standards today; they are exceeding what is already a high bar.
For instance, they are codifying their security controls as compared to using third-party vendor solutions on the public market. Hackers have access to those devices and can reverse engineer them to identify vulnerabilities. It’s much more difficult to launch an attack against cloud providers when the underlying system operates within their domain. Chief information and chief risk officers are aware of this when evaluating these controls.
When you compare the two side-by-side, the cybersecurity issue is no longer a barrier to the public cloud.
Eagle team at FTF Awards 2018
Q: How is Eagle handling the private and public cloud computing needs of its clients? Is Eagle adjusting its offerings?
A: We have always been a private cloud provider and will continue to operate as such.
With the public cloud, we see a clear line of demarcation. It’s based on two considerations: data and workloads.
Eagle ACCESS will continue to provide data management, accounting, and performance measurement solutions within our private cloud. The public cloud will be an extension of our services. It will add new capabilities around data management, improve workload optimization, enable ecosystem connectivity to other fintechs, facilitate global processing, and advance business intelligence. We have also designed our service to ensure the integrity of our private cloud as we’ve extended our platform to the public cloud, so our clients have a full range of options.
Q: Financial services firms are developing complex cloud strategies. What are some things to consider when a firm is reviewing its private and public cloud options and a software-as-a-solution (SaaS) strategy?
A: In addition to the fundamentals pertaining to governance and cybersecurity, clients should think about new skillsets. Consumers of cloud solutions recognize the ambiguity pertaining to “infrastructure as a service” software. Teams are no longer configuring systems; they are codifying the configuration and changing systems through dev/ops.
It’s a new paradigm for the financial services industry. While most understand that we need software engineers to run tomorrow’s infrastructure, most organizations are struggling to determine where and how to begin.
Also, firms need to understand what continuous monitoring means for the organization, not just IT. Organizational changes need to happen within other functions, such as HR, client service, procurement, asset tracking, change control and other areas of the business. Another significant consideration pertains to audit and accreditations. Internal audit procedures will need to be enhanced. The COO or CIO should not underestimate this effort.
Q: Given what is happening with disruptive technologies, would you say that moving to the cloud is the first step that financial services firms need to take? What are some other steps?
A: Not sure if we can say it’s a mandatory first step for every client.
What we are seeing today is that moving to the cloud is no longer a back-office or IT decision. It’s a part of the business strategy and, ultimately, a front-office decision. The businesses that can execute with the least amount of friction will be in position to realize the greatest opportunities.
Cloud services dramatically reduce friction by removing the overhead of IT procurement, simplifying the navigation of complex organizational structures, and eliminating the need to compete for resources and capacity. That’s a pretty compelling proposition for global asset managers and investment firms, which is why so many are considering how they can take that first step today.
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