Is it safe for banks to apply cloud computing technology?

"We don't need to buy a data center anymore, and we don't need to buy racks or storage devices or network devices anymore," said Australian federal Bank CIO Michael Harte at the Australian Economic Development Association. And I'm not going to let any of my banks be tied to some kind of hardware or software system. I'll never tell my IT team that the hardware they need will be delivered in a week. I will not be in the future to buy any software or hardware, for those who have not used equipment or software, I do not have to pay for their various costs. ”

Cloud computing, with its early 0 cost inputs, shared services via the Internet, flexible, charging for use, has attracted the attention of many large banks. ING has started experimenting with cloud computing technology, and some banks are watching cloud computing technology closely, and expect to have a clear conclusion on issues related to cloud computing security. Of course, some banks still know little about cloud computing technology.

High-tech cost and insufficient hardware capacity are the common problems faced by large banks. With the help of cloud technology, these banks can effectively improve computing power without the need to spend more money, labor costs, or hardware and software equipment. Because in the cloud computing, hardware and software are on demand, users only need to use for their own hardware and software resources to pay, do not need to follow the traditional way to purchase a large number of hardware and software equipment earlier.

One of the many problems faced by the IT department of large banks is that their computer equipment cannot be optimally utilized. In general, large banks have bought a large number of computer equipment, the bank's internal hardware computing capacity is large enough, but lack of optimization. In this case, if the bank believes that there is no need to migrate all applications to the cloud environment, only part of the application can be migrated.

For small banks, there may not be enough capacity to buy a strong enough hardware to achieve a core business solution, which would have a knock-on effect on the competitiveness of the banks. By ordering the cloud computing service model, such a small bank can purchase computing services by number of users and branches, reducing upfront investment costs. Another problem facing small banks is that there are not enough skilled technicians to manage servers and hardware devices. By choosing cloud computing services, the problem will no longer exist.

There is no doubt that the banks ' adoption of cloud computing will certainly have many benefits, and all this is premised on the proper resolution of the concerns of such security-sensitive industries as security and compliance. Mixed or shared cloud it architectures can achieve manageable costs, flexibility, scalability, and availability on demand, while addressing issues such as security, compliance, and performance concerns of banks or similar financial institutions.

ING, a financial services group, has been working with several technology giants to plan a massive hybrid cloud architecture that combines public and private data centers, including IBM, HP, Cisco, VMware, and EMC. ING's private cloud includes automated computing, storage, and network resource management functions, while ING plans to migrate regular Office applications, tool software, and business software to the cloud environment.

Microsoft, too, is aware that financial markets are a key market area for cloud computing, and that, given the changing rules and the pressures of competition and cost, Microsoft has already started working with a number of cloud services providers. Misys and Temenos, for example, provide banking core application services through cloud computing. In addition, in the investment Market, Wall Street BAE companies have also begun to migrate their trading management systems to the cloud computing environment.

For banks, any office and trading procedures, and any data, are confidential. As a result, most banks are looking at the technology without a sound cloud security strategy for banks. This strategy should include the following:

determines what business functions can be applied to what type of cloud environment and how sensitive data is categorized. Develop a complex list of requirements for the lines of business and specific business functions that banks are going to run in the cloud environment. Banks can consider a secure private cloud solution, and if they adopt a private cloud solution, they should be fully responsible for the cloud-based Low-cost solution and ensure that the needs of the bank's customers are well met. The database can continue to remain within the bank, placing applications (based on SOA, multi-tenant architecture) in a private cloud environment and combined with other architectures (typically a secure hybrid cloud model).