Around the Cloud in Eighty Days - The Third Leg of the Journey: Architecture

This is Part 3 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

Each of my ten blogs over the eighty days will echo the themes discussed in Reply’s ten-part webinar series, Cloud in Financial Services, in which we’ll highlight some of the key points offered by our presenters and panel members.

In the second webinar, we benefited from a wonderful panel of experts who shared their ideas on strategic ‘infrastructure’ issues. If you haven’t yet read the second part, you can do so here.

In this blog, relating to the third leg of the journey, we are taking it one step further and discussing the ‘architecture’ of Cloud adoption. By this, we are referring to the blueprint that ensures that adoption of the Cloud reliably meets your business requirements.

I have summarised what I have learned from this third webinar’s collection of outstanding experts, including Patrick Devis, CIO of Belfius; James Saull, Senior Manager of Solutions Architecture - Global Financial Services, AWS; Tim Falla, Partner at Glue Reply; and John Sidhu, also a Partner at Glue Reply — subject matter experts in IT architecture.

Effective Cloud Architecture

Tim and John kicked off this third webinar talking about how Glue Reply helps clients with Strategy & Architecture. They touched on seven key Cloud architectural considerations.

Figure 1: Driving an effective Cloud Architecture – Seven Strategic Considerations

1. Deployment models: In any discussion of Cloud adoption, the decision-makers must have an understanding of the Public, Private, Hybrid, and Multi-Cloud options before them — and which best suits their business requirements now and in the future.
2. Service models: We discussed three primary models, i.e. Software as a Service (Saas), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The main differentiator between them is the level of service provided for you as opposed to the level of service you must provide for yourself.
3. Security: Reiterating the sentiment from past presenters in Webinar 2, Tim and John reaffirmed the fundamental role of security in Cloud Architecture. “The biggest problem around security is typically that security processes and ways of working aren’t well-attuned to the Cloud environment… It’s important that Cloud capability comes with a security model that works, and that includes both Identity and Role-Based Access Management, as well as many other security considerations.”
4. Integration Approach: This can be complex. Today, many organisations have their systems sitting in a datacentre and they all communicate on a flat, or fairly flat, network. When you move into the Cloud, that context changes and you may have some services in the Cloud and others on-premise. “Modern approaches towards architecture drive a different approach towards integration,” explained John.
5. Cloud Governance: There is a macro governance issue to make sure appropriate controls are in the right place regarding where you put data in the Cloud. There is also more of a structural and operational governance consideration (e.g., accounting for expenditure and managing and limiting how services are used). This is a key issue that we will come back to in Webinar 4.
6. Operational Readiness: As the context changes and you move from datacentres to Cloud, you will require new skills (e.g., DevOps, CloudOps, DataOps); you’ll need to be ready for those.
7. Identification of Mission Critical Services: Last but not least, you still have to ensure that you can meet the day-to-day servicing of your current responsibilities while you migrate to the Cloud.

With these 7 architectural considerations in mind, Tim and John noted the importance of the two architectural styles that underpin Cloud application, i.e.: APIs and Microservices (see Figure 2). James shared with us his experience with a range of financial institutions using AWS: Microservices architecture lets them make quick changes with minimal coding, encouraging a focus on business logic rather than the heavy lifting of building infrastructure that is required by legacy solutions.

Figure 2: Microservices and APIs are key architectural Styles that underpin Cloud-based Applications

Learning where to Begin...

“Moving to the Cloud is like buying a car. The car can drive you fast or slow and can get you where you want... However, once you bought it, you open the trunk and you see it’s full of gadgets...Then, the real tricky question is, ‘will I use them?’ And that’s not something you decide overnight without having had some kind of experimentation and experience.” — Patrick Devis, CIO of Belfius

Patrick shared an idea I wholeheartedly agree with, that the possibilities of the Cloud are almost endless but you have to learn what you can do before beginning to play with all the different ‘gadgets’. It begins as an IT ‘thing’ and, rapidly, the ‘Business people’ around the table begin to understand that it opens up wider business possibilities.

As a very simple example, let’s say you have a colleague who is fond of pushing live video streams to a million customers. Generally, you’d have to make a huge investment in infrastructure to make that possible. With Cloud, this becomes much easier and more affordable. It’s for that reason that IT and the Business must work together, because the IT team may not always identify, or be able to clearly express, the business opportunities that Cloud flexibility provides. Back to my opening comment: Your Cloud architecture is the blueprint that will ensure that your adoption of the Cloud reliably meets your business requirements!

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Click here to watch the recap video for Webinar #3/10.

 If you have any questions about any of the above, please feel free to reach out to us at Reply at cloudwebinars@reply.com. Keep an eye out for episode 4 where we’ll discuss Cloud Governance and Operating Model.

To help clients build an effective Cloud Strategy and put the right architecture in place, Glue Reply adopts a framework that provides a progressive journey for Cloud adoption. If you’d like to talk with John or Tim about this, you can reach them at:
Tim Falla Partner t.falla@reply.com	John Sidhu Partner j.sidhu@reply.com