Fintech case study

- processed electronic payments and reported relevant data to US wholesale distributors and
retailer of alcoholic beverages
- Challenges:
1. Data integration: cleansing

2. security concerns: security challenges (DDoS or other cyberattacks), data loss, and
potential outages

- Data were captured in transactions and transferred to warehouse for analysis.

- identify both short- and long-term costs (throughout the project life cycle)

- cloud computing also transferred the work associated with updating infrastructure and ensuring
high reliability to providers who were able to capitalize on their extensive experience and scale.

- cost-effectively scale

- monthly price estimates, high performance computing power, at least 1024 gb of storage, and
customer support

- economic factors (initial price, complementary investments, total cost of ownership, etc.);
technical factors (programmability, database support, scalability, etc.) human factors (availability
and skills of local, provider, and consultant IT staff and analytics staff), and other aspects, such
as security.

- Amazon, Microsoft and Google scored in the top 3 for two critical capabilities for Fintech:
batch computing and cloud-native applications.

- Forrester indicates Amazon and Microsoft are Leaders in the public cloud platform category,
while Google is a Strong Performer.

- Three providers:

1. Software Development Kits (SDK) that supported multiple programming languages

2. extensive development support on multiple operating systems and devices,

3. trained many consultants on their products. multiple training vendors supported each
option, and each provider. also offered its own online training resources and exams.

4. pricing calculator to help customers estimate monthly or yearly costs.

- Azure SQL uses an in-memory database, which executes computations really fast.

SaaS

- SaaS, a customer only needed a standard Internet browser and user credentials
- SaaS providers used a “multi-tenant” architecture designed to serve many clients
(whether consumers or organizations).
- developed and managed the software that they delivered online
- worked equally well via desktop or laptop computers, tablets or smart phones.

ASP

- a customer needed to download some client software to their machine before it was
possible to work with that software online

- managed and hosted third-party software

- a separate instance of an application was dedicated to each particular corporate

customer

PaaS (Amazon)

- owned and operated server farms/data centers and also provided useful tools -- such as
automatically updated operating systems, development tools and middleware.

- would manage and deliver both the infrastructure and behind-the-scenes software.

Iaas

- owned and operated the server farms/data centers, but its clients’ IT staff would choose,
install, and maintain their own middleware, developer tools and so on.

1. Joe Kwo must choose a cloud services provider. Based only upon the information in the
case, which should he choose and why?
Among Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, Joe
Kwo should choose AWS as a cloud services provider. The primary reason is that AWS
offers flexible and similar configuration compared to the other two at a lower cost and bigger
storage. AWS provides Redshift as a data warehouse, which was used in other successful
companies such as Nokia and Coinbase. Configuration can be easily expanded or contracted.
Even though they had to purchase a third party tool to transfer test data into the cloud service,
it could be integrated nicely with their current extraction packages.
2. What process would you use to reach the decision? What are the positive and negative
aspect of each provider?
Before choosing a cloud services provider, we have to evaluate its offerings from various
perspectives such as the economic, technical, human factors, and security concerns. After
that, we will run a test using the cloud service by moving only a copy of the data that EFTS
generates to make sure we can run it in a controlled way.
- AWS: Offers the biggest storage and is the cheapest with easily modified
configuration. Redshift as the data warehouse. The disadvantage is that a third party
tool will be required to move data which can result in security issues.
- Microsoft Azure: Offers an in-memory database that carries out computations fast
and enhances the performance of our proprietary algorithms. Most expensive among
all.
- Google Cloud: Flexible pricing with volume discount and easily customized
configuration. The negative aspect is that it is based on per minute billing.