A cloud to call your very own

Featured Events | Oct 30, 2016 | Matthew Stratford

Why is cloud technology needed in financial services?

For one thing, it has become the norm—everyone, from individuals to global brands, is moving to the cloud. For another, it is loaded with benefits.

But what is the shape of the cloud in today’s financial-services world?

This was the subject of the Gabelli School of Business’ first fall-semester gathering of the CIO Roundtable, which brings Fordham academics together with executives from the information and technology fields, from internet cybersecurity entrepreneurs to the CEOs of global firms.

Leading the discussion was Tsvi Gal, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, who first explained the distinction between the two different kinds of clouds: public and private.

What’s the public cloud? Think Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box. These systems are familiar to many of us who don’t have unlimited storage on our computers and who don’t have (or want) an external hard drive. These services are relevant for certain companies, too—and could be game-changers as modern-day data centers run out of space. Traditional solutions to this space crunch would have been to compress data or invest further in hardware. Through the public cloud, businesses have the potential to save time, space, and money.

For companies such as J.P. Morgan or Goldman Sachs, however, where security is a top priority, the private cloud is a more appealing option. These large firms are paying cloud companies to create proprietary services just for them. It’s more expensive but provides a far greater level of data security.

Gal said the move from the traditional data centers to the private cloud will not be without its challenges, but it represents an innovative approach that is likely to yield new solutions.

Senior-level information and technology professionals who are interested in attending a CIO Roundtable meeting are encouraged to contact the Roundtable’s director, Associate Professor Aditya Saharia, at saharia@fordham.edu.