Many companies are looking at ways to reduce costs and simplify their IT infrastructure. The vendors that didn’t start cloud native are all moving the applications to the cloud – and SimCorp can now be hosted on a cloud-based infrastructure, where service providers such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud become responsible for technical operations and platform maintenance. Clients can of course also choose SimCorp as a hosting service provider.

To reap the benefits of moving from on-prem to the cloud there are certain activities that need to happen.

We have extensive experience working with clients migrating SimCorp Dimension to the cloud, which includes:

• Scoping and building business cases for moving applications to the Cloud
• Running the evaluation and selection process for hosting options, leading to a recommendation that considers business and IT requirements, regulatory requirements, current business flows, project and re-engineering efforts, as well as providing input to contractual and commercial aspects
• Delivering the cloud migration project, including project management, business analysis, integration and re-engineering of business-critical workflows, test management, and training.

We have created a series of Insights based on our experence with clients that take a closer look at the critical phases involved and explore the main considerations for firms planning to move to a hosted cloud-based infrastructure.

1. Establishing a Business Case for the Cloud Journey
2. Selecting the right Cloud Solution
3. Cloud Migration – Considerations and Key Activities

Background

Historically monitoring, maintaining, and upgrading infrastructure and business applications installed on premise was by many firms seen as a necessary activity to support their ongoing business activities. Today it is an activity that very rarely is seen as something that adds much value to a company’s business. Running a legacy application on an old platform may even have a negative impact on a company’s ability to operate and/or result in loss of market shares or reduced revenue.

Moving to a hosted cloud-based infrastructure allows companies to outsource their IT infrastructure, support & upgrades as well as day-to-day maintenance. Such activities are generally offered on a subscription basis, at a known cost and with the ability to scale hardware as needed. Scaling the infrastructure typically incurs a predefined cost but can be done on short notice. While cloud services may seem more costly than running the platform locally, it reduces the firm’s budget requirements for procurement, implementation/updates and maintenance of on-premises infrastructure and applications as well as can help increase flexibility and security and reduce time to market. In order to assess the advantages and disadvantages of different options, clients usually conduct a rigorous evaluation and selection process, to establish a sound justification for their decision.

We also witness how software vendors are consistently moving away from offering on-premises solutions and toward offering new clients their software applications on an ‘-as-a-Service’ basis. This is seen in particular with the SimCorp SaaS Platform. A key selling point is that clients should “focus on what they do best” and let the vendor take responsibility for running the hardware and software. We have also observed that many vendors are expanding the number of Business-Processes-as-a-Service (BPaaS) services they offer. Over the last few years, SimCorp has increased its services with additional offerings such as “Investment Operation” and “Investment Accounting” services.