The Efficiency and Accessibility of Cloud-Based Investment Management
Moving your investment management operations and backups to a cloud-based investment management system offers numerous advantages beyond just cost savings. One of the most significant benefits is unique accessibility, allowing you to access your data from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. Cloud storage is also highly scalable, enabling you to pay only for the amount of storage you require and easily add more storage without upgrading hardware.
Hardware obsolescence is still a common phenomenon in today’s world, but storing your data on a cloud environment means that the cloud providers are responsible for dealing with upgrades, ensuring your data remains accessible even with out-of-date technology. Finally, security is another critical benefit of cloud storage. Cloud storage firms typically offer far better security than what small or medium-sized companies can reasonably achieve, giving you peace of mind that your data is safe and secure.
Why Move Operations and Backups to a Cloud-Based Investment Management System?
Moving your operations and backups to the cloud offers a number of advantages, beyond just cost savings. In fact, FundCount spent time and resources developing a cloud-based version over the past year to take advantage of these benefits.
1. Security and Compliance
FundCount’s cloud-based system is AWS compliant, which is Amazon’s security protocol that empowers customers with robust controls in place to maintain security and data protection in the AWS Cloud. This provides clients with peace of mind knowing their data is secure in the cloud.
Due to cost constraints, security software of this kind is typically not installed on small, in-house servers. Additionally, these servers do not encounter as many attacks as cloud-based servers, which implies that they are not as well-versed in defending against cyber-attacks. While a cloud-based server can fend off millions of attacks, an in-house server may only be equipped to handle thousands, leaving it more susceptible to unknown attacks, which are more likely to succeed.
2. Accessibility and Cost Savings
One significant benefit of the cloud-based version is its accessibility from anywhere, which eliminates the need for an expensive IT team. Clients no longer need to worry about upgrade costs for either hardware or software. The cloud-based system is easily set up and upgraded, resulting in no down time. Partial uptime (scheduled working hours + working days) is also available to reduce costs.
Hardware Resources: Swift Acquisition and Flexibility
One of the most significant advantages of cloud computing is that the vendor is responsible for providing hardware resources, which eliminates the need for expensive in-house equipment. As your business expands, investing in new hardware can become an inconvenient and costly expense. However, by switching to cloud computing, you can quickly acquire resources and scale them on-demand, giving you the freedom and flexibility that is impossible with an on-premise setup.
Equipment Repair and Replacement: Shift from Capital to Operational Expenditure
Furthermore, repairing and replacing equipment is the vendor’s responsibility, which shifts your budget from capital expenditure to operational expenditure. This not only reduces costs but also eliminates the need for an in-house data center, freeing up valuable office space and reducing energy costs.
Reduced Labor and Maintenance Costs: Vendor-Supplied Hardware and Offsite Data Storage
Another advantage of using cloud solutions is the reduction in labor and maintenance costs. As the hardware is supplied by the vendor and data is stored offsite, there is no need for a large in-house IT staff. This eliminates the need for maintenance personnel, saving your company valuable time and money. This means that you don’t require a large in-house IT staff, and when hardware requires upgrades or repairs, vendors handle those tasks, freeing up your staff.
Increased Productivity: Rapid Deployment and Focus on New Initiatives
Cloud computing can significantly increase workforce productivity, resulting in additional cost savings. Deploying cloud software can cut installation times from weeks or months to just two hours, reducing the time employees spend waiting for software deployment and enabling them to focus on new initiatives.
Easy Adoption: Intuitive and Web Browser-Based
Cloud-Based Investment Management solutions are also easy to adopt and intuitive, reducing employee training time and speeding up adoption across your company. Software as a service application is usually web browser-based, allowing employees to access them from any location with an internet connection. Moving to the cloud can make your employees more efficient, regardless of their location or work environment.
3. Cloud-Based Investment Management Scalability
Clients need only pay for the amount of storage they require. If their requirements increase, it is easy to add storage without having to upgrade hardware. This makes it possible for businesses to easily adjust to their needs as they grow, without incurring significant additional costs.
Existing cloud computing infrastructure enables easy scaling of data storage capacity, processing power, and networking. This process is quick and straightforward, often with minimal or no downtime. Third-party cloud providers have pre-existing infrastructure, which contrasts with on-premises physical infrastructure scaling that was previously a time-consuming and costly process taking weeks or months to complete.
4. Disaster Recovery
Data is replicated in different geographical locations, allowing businesses to get up and running quickly in the event of a disaster with minimal data loss. This ensures business continuity and minimizes any potential negative impact on the company’s operations.
The conventional approach to IT disaster recovery entails storing backup data in three ways: onsite (local), manual transportation of backup data to an offsite location, and automated transport of backup data to an offsite location (backup data replication).
While these methods may be cost-effective, they involve many manual processes that are difficult to monitor. Additionally, they often require extensive training and the immediate availability of hardware systems (servers, storage, and network) to restore data. If your organization can tolerate extended outages, quick recovery may not be necessary. In this case, obtain written confirmation from management to ensure alignment between business and IT expectations.
If your organization, like most, cannot withstand an extended outage, it is worth considering cloud-based disaster recovery. Cloud-based disaster recovery offers three significant advantages: flexibility, reduced complexities, and, most importantly, reduced downtime.
FundCount-Specific Cloud Advantages
Using Zapier for Cloud Uploads
Uploading backups to the cloud is crucial for data security and accessibility. However, syncing Drive with cloud storage has drawbacks. It consumes server space and gives all users access to Drive, creating security risks. Sometimes syncing doesn’t work, requiring manual checks for regular uploading.
FundCount integrated with Zapier to automate workflows and schedule backups directly to the cloud based on regular intervals.
Advantages of Using Zapier
There are several advantages to using Zapier for cloud uploads. Firstly, Zapier can simultaneously integrate with multiple storage applications, such as Google Drive and DropBox. This enhances flexibility for users with multiple storage options. It improves security by restricting access to sensitive client data to only the administrator. This is because the drive is not stored on the local server. Finally, if anything goes wrong, the app sends an email notification informing you, which provides additional peace of mind.
A reliable backup strategy is crucial to ensure that your investment management data remains secure and accessible. Hazards like viruses, theft, water and fire damage, software corruption, human error, and hardware failure are likely to occur. Lack of a backup plan can lead to permanent data loss and severe damage to your business operations.
The 3-2-1 Backup Mantra
A tried-and-true backup plan recommended by FundCount is the 3-2-1 Backup Mantra. To implement this strategy, keep at least three copies of your data. Store two of these copies on different storage devices or media, and keep one copy at an offsite location. Using the cloud to meet the offsite requirement is an excellent way to fulfill this standard. It is even acceptable to use two or three different cloud locations to meet all three requirements.
Cloud storage firms typically offer far better security than what small or medium-sized companies can reasonably achieve
Try before you buy with the FundCount Sandbox
Customers can now try before they buy by taking advantage of a fully operational cloud-based investment management version available through the FundCount Sandbox. There is no need to spend thousands or millions of dollars implementing a new system before ensuring it benefits them. This trial period allows customers to test and evaluate the cloud-based system before making any commitments.
