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FinTech Trends Newsletter Week 17th July – 21st July 2017
Why Every Alternative Asset Manager Needs a Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan
As a digitally active business in 2017, you can’t afford to lose your data. Whether at the hands of a natural disaster, human error, or cyber attack, data loss is costly and extremely risky. That’s why you need a backup and disaster recovery solution, especially as a Regulated firm.
The most basic definition is a combination of data backup and disaster re- covery (BDR) solutions that are designed to work together to ensure uptime, diminish data loss, and maximise productivity in the midst of an attack, nat- ural disaster or other compromising situation. In other words, BDR solutions keep firms safe when trouble strikes. It’s becoming increasingly challenging for Alternative Investment Firms to protect their private data.
Four reasons why Financial Firms need a BDR plan.
- Protects against effects of natural disasters. Whether it’s a flood, storm, fire (like the London Holborn Fire in 2015), or other extreme natural disaster, there are plenty of uncontrollable circumstances that can cause your business to experience downtime. While a BDR plan won’t prevent a natural disaster from occurring, it will protect your firm, client and investor data and ensure that downtime doesn’t compromise your company.
- Lessens impact of cyber attacks. As more and more data is moved online, cyber criminals are increasing their efforts and focusing on businesses that they believe are unprotected. In most cases, this means small to mid sized firms, especially financial firms, that ap- pear vulnerable. Once again, a BDR plan can limit the impact of an attack and can prevent your firm from losing valuable data.
- Keeps client data safe. Do you store a lot of confidential client or investor data? If so, you can’t afford to lose this data or let it slip into the wrong hands. A BDR plan ensures that all of this information is properly stored and controlled. As a result, you don’t have to worry about damaging your firm reputation, should an unforeseeable incident arise.
- People make mistakes. While natural disasters and cyber attacks are discussed more than anything else, the reality is that your own employees are sometimes responsible for the biggest data losses. Mistakes happen and a single poor choice or human error can end up compromising data. That’s why it’s so important for businesses not only to train employees properly, something Storm IT Financial ad- vocates actively and can help with, but also invest in backup solutions.
What to look for in a Managed Service Provider (MSP) & BDR solution.
Once you determine that your business needs a BDR plan in place, how do you find the right solution & MSP to manage it? While every Firm is different, start by analysing the following:
*Hardware compatibility – Hardware dependent, you may need a BDR solution that’s specifically tailored to your current setup. Keep this in mind as you compare options *Scalable pricing – As your business grows over time, you’re going to collect and store more data. A flexible pricing model will allow you cost-effectively to scale according to your demands, something Storm IT Financial can help with
*Around-the-clock support – You never know when disaster will strike. Make sure that your MSP & BDR vendor has 24/7/365 technical support available.
Protect your business – No one wants to assume that something bad is going to happen to their Firm – and hopefully you’ll never be ex- posed to any of the risks highlighted above but the harsh reality is that you’ll likely face one of these issues at some point in the future. There’s no way to prevent a cyber attack, natural disaster, technical malfunction or human error, but you can protect your firm from costly data loss by investing in a solution that aids in data backup and disaster recovery. Frankly, it’s unwise to wait any longer.
For more information on Hedge Fund, Asset Management, Private Equity & Alternative Investment data backup & disaster recovery solutions, cyber security & data management advice, data storage, cloud & IT Services, feel free to contact Storm IT Financial.
Storm IT Financial FinTech News & Trends picks: Week 17th July – 21st July 2017
How Azure Security Center helps protect your servers with Firewall
Azure Security Center (ASC) will detect and protect Azure-based data
Machines could take over 30% of bank jobs: McKinsey
Robots, AI & automation could take over almost a third of investment banking jobs within just a few years, according to McKinsey:
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30864/machines-could-take-over-30-of-bank-jobs-mckinsey
Microsoft profit beats expectations on strong Azure cloud demand
Microsoft reported strong fourth-quarter earnings on the back of its fast-
growing Azure cloud computing business, stoking optimism…:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-results-idUKKBN1A52PV
How ready are you for Mifid II?
A recent survey found that 90% of buy-side firms are at risk of non-compliance by the Mifid II deadline in January 2018:
Lloyd’s of London: Major global cyber-attacks could cost £40 billion
Lloyd’s of London has predicted that a global cyber-attack could end up costing anywhere between £3.5 to £40.5 billion:
Citigroup FinTech’s global head of policy, Andres Wolberg-Stok on How banks can embrace technology through ‘fintegration’
Podcast on how Citigroup makes high-tech work for in-house teams and customers alike:
Digital platform launches Mifid II research monitoring tool
Digital platform ResearchPool has launched a Mifid II software package designed to help firms budget spending and evaluate research.
Regulatory data exchange platform launches
New platform meant to simplify data & document ex- change as the industry prepares for PRIIPs and Mifid II:
EDM Council Data Management Benchmark HighlightsNeed to Improve Data Quality
The Enterprise Data Management (EDM) Council’s 2017
Summary illustrates the highs and lows of data man- agement across financial services firms:
Dow Jones leaves 2m customer records hanging out on unsecured AWS (Amazon Web Services) Server
Dow Jones various internal databases had been left unsecured on an AWS S3 server:
Amazon’s $12 billion cloud is seeing its ‘first-ever downtick’ in momentum, according to Deutsche Bank
Amazon Web Services cloud-computing business faces challenges ahead:
Best Practice for MiFID II and FRTB Data Analytics & Risk Modelling
MiFID II & FRTB raise the bar on data analytics requir- ing firms to tackle data quality and consistency:
