Efficient Data Automation for Financial Firms

Featured article by Jim Manias, Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.

Benefits of the Architectural Approach for IT Development

The power of data for creating investments and mitigating risk has a long history, with one of the most well-known examples occurring in 1815 when Nathan Rothschildfamously employed the use of carrier pigeons to relay news of the Battle of Waterloo. Rothschild’s edge in receiving and transmitting real-time information resulted in a significant arbitrage opportunity for the Rothschild banking family, with estimated profits at 20 times that of the family’s pre-war capital. For modern companies, apps and systems (not pigeons) are carrying the data, and it falls on IT to be sure this movement happens quickly and accurately.Timeliness and efficiency in the delivery of relevant data translates into increased revenues and reduced risks for all financial firms.

Data for financial firms needs to be presented in real time, and IT workload automation is a crucial facilitator that allows firms to process this vital data. Firms that stand out in the marketplace have automation in place that pulls data from both internal and external systems, allowing them to process and analyze the data before the opportunity is lost. Not surprisingly, there are some roadblocks to this automation. There is the issue of the data itself, as well as the challenge of sharing and passing that data across multiple applications and systems while managing those dependencies. Another is the complexity and distributed nature of modern IT departments. The complex nature of modern IT departments is compelling financial firms to invest in an “architectural approach” to best manage automation from a single console, rather than having to manage and coordinate a multitude of point scheduling systems.

This approach has processes and systems at the top of the list, moving beyond technologies, geographies, and physical assets, to manage various business requirements including policies, standards, and SLA’s. The architectural approach is a more holistic method of IT automation that reduces costs by reducing, if not removing complexity, while also streamlining data management. This approach cannot be matched by any bolted-on point solutions which put the solution on top of existing systems. The bolted-on solution is an older way of doing things that introduces complexity and costs through a patchwork quilt of automation solutions that are focused on specific tasks and/or systems. However, once the number of tasks that require automation and coordination increases, the number of tools that need to be maintained also increases. This increased complexity causes a greater investment in time and people resources, which results in higher costs of IT operations. If this approach continues unabated, the result is a complex network of systems that has to be tied together using custom script creation. Custom scripting has proven to be brittle and costly to create due to its requirement of senior-level resources that can be better served working on other higher level tasks. This approach also limits centralized monitoring and control, so IT can’t quickly resolve issues because they aren’t armed with the right information.

An architectural approach with a workload automation solution means resources can be quickly assigned and re-assigned based on policies and strategic concerns, not structures and schedules. Service level objectives can be handled effortlessly because a workload automation system replaces the multiple point systems, thus allowing an organization to automate the sharing of data while managing cross-system dependencies through a single console. This can be done without expensive script creation and can be accomplished across both legacy and critical third-party applications and analytics.

Trading systems can be updated with greater frequency because IT can better manage workloads and processes that are moving data between both internal and external sources. Oftentimes, the data and numbers from one day’s trades must be crunched before the next morning for analysts and portfolio managers to evaluate. An automated workload solution can allow trading systems to be more reliably updated because IT can better manage essential workload and core business processes. Moreover, in an industry where regulation has grown exponentially, a workload automation solution can provide a security framework with role-based permissions in order to prevent unauthorized personnel from making changes to jobs. In addition to automating critical business processes, such as a company’s risk assessment and trading software, a workload solution automates IT operations and infrastructure management, resulting in increased productivity for IT operations. Hours spent on manually managing dependencies and executing various processes can be freed up towards other higher level tasks.

So what is the broader benefit to financial firms? Visibility is a big one, with IT having access to data about the value of services it provides. Improved governance is another benefit, with centralized automation offering a method for managing regulation and compliance. Moving away from the complexity of bolted-on solutions is another benefit. Today’s new world for financial firms needs to be built on accommodating rapid changes in their IT environments by replacing custom scripting while helping firms reduce risk. The goal is to allow the workload automation solution to absorb the risk that is inherent in scripting and trying to coordinate multiple job scheduling systems. For most financial companies, IT is a cost of doing business. Investing in a workload automation solution that gets businesses the data they need and updates their systems more efficiently is key to the continued success of these companies.

Jim Manias is Vice President at Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc.  and is responsible for the overall market strategy and planning for a range of products including ActiveBatch® Workload Automation and Job Scheduling.  Jim has been with Advanced Systems Concepts since 1991 and has held multiple senior management positions in the enterprise software and hardware market.  Jim can be reached at JManias@advsyscon.com