Cloud Computing for Banks

For quite some time now, organizations have sought quicker,

better and cost effective business models in the areas of
application development, deployment and management. Rapid
changes in business computing models - from fixed (static) to
dynamic are forcing enterprises to look for innovative models
and architecture. Though technologies like conventional grid
computing, virtualization, utility computing, dedicated servers
and SOA offer partial solutions, these alone are not enough to
achieve greater scalability, agility, reliability, fault tolerance,
and better management capabilities for enterprise
infrastructure and the applications that run on it.

Cloud computing, which is the convergence of these

independent technologies, resulting in a new computing
paradigm, attempts to counter these challenges.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing provides the facility to access shared resources and

common infrastructure, offering services on demand over the network
to perform operations that meet changing business needs. The location
of physical resources and devices being accessed are typically not
known to the end user. It also provides facilities for users to develop,
deploy and manage their applications ‘on the cloud’, which entails
virtualization of resources that maintains and manages itself.

Some generic examples include:

• Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) offering computational
services that enable people to use CPU cycles without buying more
computers
• Storage services such as those provided by Amazon’s Simple
Storage Service (S3)
• Companies like Nirvanix allowing organizations to store data and
documents without adding a single on-site server
• SaaS companies like Salesforce.com delivering CRM services, so
clients can manage customer information without installing
specialized software

Within the next five years, the annual global market for cloud
computing is expected to surge to $95 billion. Reports estimated that
12 percent of the worldwide software market would go to the cloud in
that period. Analysts believe that by 2011 the volume of cloud
computing market opportunity will amount to $160 billion, including
$95 billion in business and productivity applications (e-mail, office,
CRM, among others) and $65 billion in online advertising.
Research indicates that IT spending towards cloud computing is
expected to grow at an annual rate of 27 percent as compared to an
annual growth rate of 7 percent for overall IT spending, between 2008
and 2012.
Characteristics of cloud computing
Cloud computing, typically entails:
• High scalability
Cloud environments enable servicing of business requirements for
larger audiences, through high scalability
• Agility
The cloud works in the ‘distributed mode’ environment. It shares
resources among users and tasks, while improving efficiency and
agility (responsiveness)
• High availability and reliability
Availability of servers is high and more reliable as the chances of
infrastructure failure are minimal
• Multi-sharing
With the cloud working in a distributed and shared mode, multiple
users and applications can work more efficiently with cost reductions
by sharing common infrastructure
• Services in pay-per-use mode
• SLAs between the provider and the user must be defined when
offering services in pay per use mode. This may be based on the
complexity of services offered
 • Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) may be offered to the
users so they can access services on the cloud by using these APIs
• Support for all service oriented applications

Comparison with related technologies

Several technologies are related to cloud computing, and the cloud has
emerged as a convergence of several computing trends. It seeks to
address certain key aspects that may have been lacking in each of
these trends, individually. The features of each of these related
technologies and how they compare with cloud computing has been
outlined in the table.

Types of cloud computing environments

The cloud computing environment can consist of multiple types of

clouds based on their deployment and usage.
Public clouds
This environment can be used by the general public. This includes
individuals, corporations and other types of organizations. Typically,
public clouds are administrated by third parties or vendors over the
Internet, and services are offered on pay-per-use basis. These are also
called provider clouds.
Business models like SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and public clouds
complement each other and enable companies to leverage shared IT
resources and services.

• Example
New York Times archive project which used 100 Amazon EC2
instances and 5.5TB of S3 storage to generate PDFs of 11 million
articles for the paper’s archives, at a small fraction of traditional
costs
• Advantages
• Public clouds are widely used in the development, deployment
and management of enterprise applications, at affordable costs
• Allows organizations to deliver highly scalable and reliable
applications rapidly and at more affordable costs
• Limitations
Security is a significant concern in public clouds
Private clouds
This cloud computing environment resides within the boundaries of an
organization and is used exclusively for the organization’s benefits.
These are also called internal clouds. They are built primarily by IT
departments within enterprises who seek to optimize utilization of
infrastructure resources within the enterprise by provisioning the
infrastructure with applications using the concepts of grid and
virtualization.
• Advantages
• They improve average server utilization, allow usage of low-cost
servers and hardware while providing higher efficiencies; thus
reducing the costs that a greater number of servers would
otherwise entail
• High levels of automation, reducing operations costs and
administrative overheads
• Limitations
IT teams in the organization may have to invest in buying, building
and managing the clouds independently

External clouds
This cloud computing environment is outside of the boundaries of the
organization, though it is not necessarily a public cloud. Some external
clouds make their cloud infrastructure available to specific other
organizations, but not to the general public.

Hybrid clouds
This is a combination of both private (internal) and public (external)
cloud computing environments.

Variations of clouds
Clouds can be classified as:
• Infrastructures
• Platforms
• Applications

Infrastructures
• Salient features
 • Known also as IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), acknowledged
as the most potent cloud
• Provides access to shared resources on need basis, without
revealing details like location and hardware to clients
• Provides details like server images on demand, storage,
queuing, and information about other resources, among others
• Vendors who provide this type of service enable cloud platforms
and cloud applications. Some may even leverage others within
the space to provide competitive viability as well
• Offers full control of server infrastructure, not limited
specifically to applications, instances and containers
• Example
Amazon’s EC2, through which users can request Linux Virtual
Machine instances that are created on the fly and billed based on
actual usage
• Limitations
• Service providers may demand higher prices for services
offered
• Issues pertaining to resource and server down time
Platforms:

• Salient features
• Known also as PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)
• Empowers developers to deploy, deliver and manage their
applications. They can build applications, upload (deploy) the
same into the cloud platform and simply run and test them
• Developers can also leverage additional benefits like
authentication and data access provided by the platform
• This cloud takes away the concept of servers, while providing
an application centric environment
• While creating this kind of cloud computing platform, a vendor
“builds a cloud platform first and then develops applications
that run on it” (OR) “develops a hostable application and then
 plugs it into the cloud”. But considering the advantages and
disadvantages, the latter would be the better approach
• Limitations

Significant dependency on cloud infrastructure providers

Applications:
• Salient features
Companies host applications on the Internet and users sign up and
use them, without concerning themselves about its maintenance
and whereabouts. This is also called as SaaS (Software-as-a-
Service)
• Advantages
Mostly free, very easy to use, feature-rich, easy to access and
promises good consumer adoption
• Limitations
User can only use the application and would not know the
technology leveraged to develop the application; thereby user has
little control over application development

Cloud computing for banks

With increasing business complexity, banks are seeking innovative
business models and specialized technologies to cater to customer
demands. Cloud computing technologies can provide banks
competitive advantage in the market, cost reductions, higher margins,
simplified maintenance and management of applications across the
enterprise, greatly extended scalability, agility, high availability,
automation, large data storages and reliable backup mechanisms.
By using cloud computing environments, banks can focus on their core
business as opposed to concerning themselves about infrastructure
scalability. Banks may explore use of cloud computing initially for
better performance through peak demand periods but eventually
adoption could spread to other areas.
The current adoption rates are still very low in the banking industry,
and some of the functionality on offer to customers is in the area of
personal money management, resulting in mixed reactions from users.
From a potential point of view, benefits for banks from cloud
computing can be accrued,
primarily, in the following business areas:
• Business Process Management (BPM)
• Business Intelligence (BI)
• Enterprise content management
• Customer interaction archival and search, e-mail archiving, e-mail
security and document creation
• Back-office activities
• Example: credit card processing
• Different types of payment processing and consolidation
• Enterprise risk management - IT frameworks for financial services
• Enterprise portals
• XTTPS - Extreme Transaction Processing Platforms.
• Enabling transactions “in the cloud” through XTP (Extreme
Transaction Processing)
• XTTPS provides the foundation technology for certain classes of
cloud computing and services as Application-Platform-as-a-Service
(APaaS)
• Printing services (printing opportunities in the enterprise)
• Identity management
• Enterprise CRM
• Consumer credit reporting
• Sales force automation
• Customer support systems
• Retail banking and stock trading
• Foreign exchange
• DNS (Domain Name System) management
• Larger storage areas and back up mechanism
• Critical batch job scheduling
• Example: month/year end interest calculations

Concerns around cloud computing for banks

When banks start using public cloud computing environments, they

must move their critical data and systems on to the cloud. Securing
this data is crucial and a clear priority for the bank. Solution vendors
need to concentrate on this aspect particularly to convincingly build
the case for enterprises to move on to the cloud. The ISACA
(Information Systems Audit and Control Association) has suggested
that two factor authentication systems connected to a robust
encrypted communications infrastructure, be deployed to secure
Internet connections to cloud computing-based services.

Certain other concerns could include:

• Service providers demanding higher prices for services being

provided

• Issues surrounding the down time of resources and servers offered

by providers
• Response times from the cloud may be too slow for certain time-
critical transaction management processes critical in banking
• Undue dependency on cloud infrastructure providers
• Lack of visibility into the technology used to develop the application;
therefore lack of control over the application
• The IT teams at the bank would have to buy, build and manage the
cloud (internal
clouds), entailing significant resource and time investments

Conclusion
Cloud computing brings significant promise in terms of scalability,
reliability, competitive advantage, cost reductions, simplified
maintenance and management of applications across the enterprise,
along with high availability and automation. Rated as one of the key
area of innovative implementation for enterprises, by experts and
analysts, it is expected to bring ample change in the way computing is
approached in today’s world.

Though the current adoption of cloud computing at banks is low, the

benefits it assures will result in cloud computing gaining prominence
and the years ahead will see a higher adoption
rate 

References
1. “Merrill Lynch Estimates ‘Cloud Computing’ To Be $100 Billion
Market”, http://www.virtualizationconference.com/node/604936
2. “IT Cloud Services Forecast - 2008, 2012: A Key Driver of New
Growth”, http://blogs.idc.com/ie/?p=224
3. Daryl C. Plummer, David W. Cearley, David Mitchell Smith, 19th June’
2008, “Cloud Computing Confusion Leads to Opportunity”, a
Gartner’s Research Special Report.
4. “Unlocking the Promise of Cloud Computing for the Enterprise”,
Appistry White Paper, 2008.
5. Rachael King, 4th Aug’2008, “How Cloud Computing is Changing the
World”,
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc20080
82_445669.htm
6. http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com
7. http://weblogic.sys-con.com

Sriramkumar Voona
Project Manager - Finacle Architecture,
Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Ravi Venkataratna
Senior Product Consultant - Finacle Architecture,
Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Review Acknowledgement
Deepak N. Hoshing
Head - Finacle Architecture
Infosys Technologies Ltd.