Top Considerations for CIOs when Migrating Treasury Business Applications to the Cloud

By Andrew Bateman, Head of Treasury Software Solutions, FIS

Andrew Bateman, Head of Treasury Software Solutions, FIS

Umpteen CIO’s in today’s environment are trying to meet their business demands, but are strained by limited budget and staff. With their current constraints, it is difficult for CIO’s to deliver the necessary services required to keep their organization competitive. Due to the limitations of traditional on-premise deployment, many CIO’s are looking at cloud solutions to supplement their company services.

"IP centric companies are now leveraging their applications and platforms via private cloud to offer managed application services and Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) to their customers."

When evaluating the cloud for Treasury department’s treasury and payments software or another type of software, it is integral to determine if SaaS (software as a service)or private cloud deployments fit company’s requirement. Some enterprise software providers offer both SaaS and private cloud options, which provide companies with options. Both offer levels of security. In a SaaS model, application runs in a multi-tenant environment in which a single instance of software is shared with other customers. On the other hand, private cloud services are gaining momentum for corporations as an extension of their IT environment and provide a way for enterprise software users to mitigate their risks and internal IT burden, controlled by the customer in a secured and dedicated environment and managed by vendors focused around those products and services.

The private cloud acts is an extension of the enterprise. Private cloud solutions provide configuration and flexibility and address the security needs of the customer. IP centric companies are now leveraging their applications and platforms via private cloud to offer managed application services and Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) to their customers.

Apart from cost, benefit and speed, the 4 vital things that CIO’s are looking while partnering with companies for offering solutions along with private cloud services are:

Control and on-demand usage

Seamless integration

Layered controls and application security

Increased investment in audits and certification

By leveraging the same enterprise software provider to host the software, companies can reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) and secure their budget over a fixed term agreement. Security is a key consideration. Privacy, Security and Compliance (PSC) are driving adoption of private cloud amongst corporations and financial firms. The private cloud can be Company’s own private data center that acts like an extension of the enterprise. Choosing an enterprise software provider that can help you deploy the business solution on the private cloud has clear business benefits, the most significant being the security and data integrity. CIOs should look for software providers with a global cloud footprint, proven track record and secured environments. The providers should also have a solid framework to the below mentioned factors:

Location: Where is this Private Cloud located?

Security: What layers of security are in place?

DR/Backup: What disaster recovery, backup and business continuity plans are in place?

Controls: Are there process controls in place to remain compliant and current with best practices?

Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) testing: Do they offer testing against OWASP and SANS vulnerabilities? This adds an additional layer of security backed by industry and domain knowledge to handle compliance and regulatory changes.

Thus, moving software applications to a private cloud model can be an ideal choice for companies managing mission-critical data like treasury and payment information where resources are limited, and privacy laws and data security are highly critical.