Cloud-native apps

2. 1
Could you provide your definition of what a cloud-native
system is?
When it comes to a non-cloud-native software, you have to manually install it on one or multiple
servers. All processing is done on the servers you configured, and you have to manually scale it up
when needed. The scalability of computing, database, IO, etc. depends on the ability to provision new
servers and reconfigure the application. And if these servers are down for maintenance or as a result of
a breakdown, the application has to be switched to a different set of servers.
In a cloud native system, servers are replaced by services. Unlike servers, services are virtualized,
distributed, and scalable, and their deployment is standards-based and is managed through the cloud
using a separate set of deployment services. There is no longer a specific set of servers to deploy the
application to, and the whole system is not dependent on an individual machine that may malfunction
at any time. Relying on services for all aspects of the application – from its core code to object storage,
messaging, and databases – strengthen a company’s resilience to data loss and make scaling much
easier.
But taking a legacy application and merely moving it to virtualized cloud instances along with all its
supporting apps/services (cache, database, queue, scheduling, etc.) does not make it cloud-native,
even though it’s technically running in the cloud. To be cloud-native, the application needs to use
services and pipelines. Only then full benefits of the cloud can be realized.
To harness the benefits of cloud-native architecture while providing our clients with maximum
flexibility of deployment options, we designed CompatibL Risk Cloud as a multi-cloud solution that can
run on virtually any set of cloud technologies on any cloud provider. The cloud native architecture of
the platform makes it possible to deploy the same version of the CompatibL software on any private,
public, or hybrid cloud, using the client’s preferred container orchestration, storage, messaging, and
caching solutions. This possibility to use the client’s preferred cloud provider and technologies
eliminates the need for a protracted procurement process and security reviews and ensures a fast and
effective deployment process.
A cloud-native system is a software application that
runs on private or public cloud, uses services
architecture that enables massive scalability, and
takes advantage of development pipelines. The first
two of these criteria are mentioned frequently, but
the third is not always on the list. At CompatibL, we
believe that development pipelines – automated
processes for performing application build,
automated testing, configuration, deployment, and
scaling – are indispensable to realizing the benefits
of the cloud and speeding up the development, test,
and production phases for each software release.

3. Among many advantages of running cloud-native systems is enhanced cybersecurity. A cloud native
application reduces cybersecurity risks by securing a standard set of cloud services and technologies,
which present less penetration risk than non-standard on-premises or hybrid networks. This presents
significantly reduced risk of a data breach compared to relying on protection of custom instances.
Another benefit of the cloud is its high degree of redundancy even when running in a single
geographic region. Even higher redundancy can be achieved by using a different geographic region as
a hot standby, this leads to significant cost savings compared to deploying an on-premises application
at a disaster recovery side.
Cloud-native solutions can take full advantage of cloud services “pay-per-use” billing model, which
helps optimize the cost of variable application loads. Financial services firms run many compute
intensive processes as part of their end of day workflows as well as intraday, for example during
portfolio optimization or when executing a new trade. Using legacy architecture on-premises or in the
cloud for variable loads results in ineffective resource use as either physical or virtualized instance
cannot be ramped up or down seamlessly when the application is running, while the ability to ramp
up or down a cloud-native service is readily available.
In one of our case studies, by implementing serverless cloud-native technologies, we were able to
reduce the infrastructure cost of CompatibL Risk Cloud deployment on AWS by an average of 62%, and
on Azure by an average of 72% compared with deploying the same application in an on-premises data
center. This 3- to 4-fold cost advantage was made possible by leveraging true serverless cloud-native
technologies rather than running the existing application on virtualized servers.
To unlock full potential of the cloud, the software must
be reengineered around services and deployment
pipelines. It must use modern cloud-native
technologies such as serverless computing, distributed
NoSQL databases, cloud object storage, and others.
Only by fully embracing cloud-native architecture,
using services-based technologies and tools, and
demanding the same of the firm’s vendors can a
financial services firm realize full benefits of the cloud.
When faced with a complex project with tough deadlines and budget limitations, project’s leadership
often takes the path of least resistance and simply transplants existing software architecture to the
cloud by relying on the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering of their cloud provider. This option
results in migrating the application by merely creating its mirror image in the cloud, with each on-
premises server migrated to its virtualized cloud counterpart. While this approach requires few
changes in the software itself, in the long run it deprives organizations of the tremendous value and
potential of cloud-native technologies.
2 What are the benefits of a cloud-native solution compared to a
system that was moved to a cloud?

4. Financial services firms rely on internal or vendor software solutions that are both highly specialized
and customized for a specific firm. Replacing these highly specialized solutions or moving them from
on-premises deployment to the cloud is slow and laborious process. Understandably, the developers of
these solutions are looking for the path of least resistance that often involves selecting just one cloud
provider and a single set of technologies to support in their cloud migration.
Unfortunately, this approach results in the opposite of cost reduction when deployed across the entire
organization. Frequently, the choices of cloud technologies are made independently by different
internal software development divisions within the bank. Even when the internal development teams
apply a consistent approach, vendor systems introduce additional technologies and cloud providers to
the mix. And when new technologies arise, switching from one technology to another is difficult to
impossible when the ability to change is not built into the foundation of the software platform. This
problem is widespread and presents a major obstacle to cloud adoption at financial services firms.
By engaging into extensive planning with our clients, CompatibL recognized this problem early and
this led to the development of our unique approach to the cloud. CompatibL Platform can run on a
variety of providers and cloud technologies, and can also seamlessly integrate data and workflows that
go across a disparate set of providers and technologies. By building the ability to work across multiple
providers and technologies into the very foundation of our platform – the Runtime API – we made it
possible for our clients to use CompatibL with their own choice of cloud provider and technologies, as
well as to use CompatibL to integrate their internal and vendor systems into seamless workflows even
if they are running on different clouds, or different sets of technologies.
This is not a unique situation, in fact such regulations are quite common. Over the past year, we
worked with three additional banking clients who are in the same position of being restricted by local
regulations or internal guidelines to either their national provider, or a narrow list of approved local
providers who committed to hosting the banks’ data and routing all traffic through the national
networks only. We expect more projects like this in the future as the banks are looking for ways to
benefit from deploying their systems in the cloud without compromising data security and meeting
the requirements of local banking secrecy laws.
3 Your nomination, which led to the win via the 2021 FTF Awards,
focused on the challenge firms face in managing cloud-based
systems supported by multiple-cloud providers. How widespread
a problem is this situation for financial services firms?
4 The CompatibL nomination referred to a successful case study
where a customer needed to transition to a nationally
sanctioned cloud provider. Has CompatibL had similar situations
since that one?

5. The advent of remote work during the pandemic has significantly reduced management’s resistance
in having applications in the cloud rather than in-house. The most important change has not been
technological, but psychological as during the pandemic period of remote work both the
management and the employees have grown comfortable with not having their systems hosted in
their physical proximity.
Remote work has been making steady inroads in the banking industry though more tolerant attitudes
toward telecommuting on some days of the week, but its expansion has been slow. CODID-19 had
tremendous impact by normalizing remote work and in a matter of months bringing about transition
that would otherwise take years or perhaps even decades. Without a doubt, this rapid shift accelerated
the digital transformation and the adoption of new technologies for working remotely. The lasting
impact long after the pandemic ends will be the ability of organizations to successfully manage
geographically distributed workforce with reduced need for in person contact, providing new
opportunities for expansion and recruiting. And this can only be achieved by leveraging the cloud.
Other than being an invaluable tool in transition to remote work, the impact of cloud on software
development was critical to being able to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions during the
pandemic. Faced with the need to make rapid changes to their software systems, financial institutions
have seen firsthand how the cloud provides faster and more effective way to rapidly evolve their
software and IT infrastructure compared to the traditional on-premises model.
Business outlook on the security of cloud infrastructure compared to hosing sensitive data locally is
also changing. With remote and new hybrid working models expected to be the norm for the
employees, on-premises-based access to data is now seen not as an advantage but as a liability.
Security risks are often cited as the reason some firms have not transitioned to the cloud. Previously,
financial services executives believed that just because a server is local and housed at a site owned by
the company, it is more secure than the cloud. However, this is a false sense of security. A security
breach will likely not be from someone breaking into a data center and physically accessing the local
server but through a cyberattack. If you look at some of the most significant security incidents, most of
them happened when an on-premises or data center network was compromised through a
cyberattack rather than through a breach of physical security. In a modern world, you cannot operate
while disconnected from the internet. No matter how good your internal network security is, just the
fact that is a custom network already makes it less secure than the highly standardized networks of
AWS, Azure, IBM, or any of the other major cloud providers.
Cloud infrastructure providers have whole teams and divisions staffed by extremely competent people
who work on cybersecurity. Over time, and especially during the pandemic-era remote work, banks
learned to trust their cloud providers with protecting their data and systems and their trust has not
been misplaced. Cloud providers can do things that an individual organization cannot do without a
massive budget, and they can be your trusted partner in securing your network from cyberattacks.
5 What are the lessons learned about cloud native systems from
the pandemic lockdown? And how are firms applying those
lessons now?

6. Machine learning is rapidly becoming a must-
have in financial trading and risk applications. At
CompatibL, we are at the forefront of this change.
CompatibL is conducting cutting edge research
on machine learning models for portfolio
valuation and risk management, and was the first
vendor to deploy a machine learning credit limit
model in production. As part of the next release of
our platform planned for Q1 of 2022, we plan to
release a full suite or machine learning models for
valuation and risk across all asset classes.
Because of the cloud’s ability to rapidly harness the massive computing resources that are required for
training a neural network, successful production deployments of machine learning algorithms are
cloud-native. They rely on the cloud’s pay per use model to optimize the cost by ramping up the
resources only when they are needed – for training machine learning models. After the training is
completed, resources can be ramped down to lower levels that are appropriate for using the models
that are already trained. For this reason, CompatibL will always be relying on cloud-native approach
deploying our machine learning models to production.
One of the most important benefits of CompatibL’s unique approach to the cloud is our ability to use the
client’s preferred cloud infrastructure provider and their unique set of preferred cloud technologies. Our
ability to follow the clients’ choices, instead of forcing the client to follow ours, greatly simplify
procurement, reduce IT costs, and resolve many of the regulatory and operational issues.
Like all prior releases of cloud applications by CompatibL, our new models will continue to benefit from
CompatibL’s unique API to be multi-cloud, supporting not only all of the major cloud vendors but also
regional and national providers, as well as private cloud solutions.
Because of our commitment to multi-cloud, CompatibL already supports a very broad range of cloud
providers and technologies. On the other hand, most of our competitors commit to either a single
provider and their proprietary technologies (usually, AWS or Azure), or only a few. Continuing
CompatibL’s commitment to leadership in multi-cloud and broad cloud vendor support, we will continue
to expand our coverage and will be adding new cloud providers and technologies in the coming year.
6 Are there cloud native innovations on the way for the
CompatibL Cloud offering? If so, what are they and when will
they become available?
7 Are there new cloud computing environments that CompatibL
Cloud will be embracing?