Consulting Services

Low cost, on demand, subscription based software for Financial Services

Financial services companies across the country are increasingly keen to use Cloud services to drive down cost, reduce time to market for new products, achieve economies of scale and rationalise their IT infrastructure. A global Gartner Executive Programs annual CIO survey conducted in Quarter 4 of 2010 found Cloud was the top priority for financial services CIOs. In addition, 39 per cent of these CIOs expected over half of their transactions would be supported via Cloud infrastructure in four years’ time.

Dunstan Thomas help financial services companies migrate their existing IT systems into the Cloud. The Dunstan Thomas team analyse  existing systems and infrastructure to provide an implementation plan with viable methods of migration and cost savings. Dunstan Thomas uniquely combine the business experience in financial services with expertise in software development. Together, Dunstan Thomas provides the Financial Services market a technology partner focessed on the needs of Financial Services.

Why Cloud?

• Cost effectivenessthrough incremental scalability. Cloud environments allow users to access additional compute resources on-demand in response to increased application loads, but only pay for what is used.
• Cost effectiveness through agility. As a shared resource, the Cloud provides flexible, automated management to distribute the computing resources among the cloud's users. This means Cloud users can take advantage of latent computing power when its needed, without having to fund the infrastructure to deliver it.
• Cost effectivenessthrough utility-based charging. Cloud users only pay for the services used, either by subscription or transaction-based model.
• Service levels achieved through reliability and fault-Tolerance. Cloud environments take advantage of the built-in redundancy of the large numbers of servers that make them up by enabling high levels of availability and reliability for Financial Services applications that can take advantage of this.
• Support for existing systems and investment through service-orientation. The Cloud is a natural home for service-oriented applications that can be integrated with host systems. This means it enables Cloud users easily scale systems.

Windows Azure Platform

Dunstan Thomas migrate and develop Cloud applications on the Windows Azure Platform. The Windows Azure Platform is a set of services and technologies that enable you to easily benefit from the scalability and agility of Cloud Computing. With the Windows Azure Platform you can store data and build and connect applications in The Cloud in much the same way you currently do 'on-premises'.

Windows Azure provides a scalable environment with compute, storage, hosting, and management capabilities. It links to on-premises applications with secure connectivity, messaging, and identity management.

The Windows Azure Platform offers a plethora of benefits for hosting existing systems as well as specialist cloud-services to help quickly and cost-effectively build reliable, scalable applications for the Cloud. Windows Azure includes:

• Azure Compute resources for hosting web-sites, running processes and generally 'doing work' in the Cloud
• Azure Storage services to store and serve massive volumes of structured and unstructured data
• SQL Azure - the relational database in the Cloud
• AppFabric Caching - fast, reliable, in-memory caching of data
• AppFabric Service Bus - the hub in the cloud to connect on-premise, cloud and mobile applications reliably
• SQL Azure Reporting Services - for embedding customisable reporting into your application
  

As with any software development project, the first step is to understand what you want to do and then to work out the best way to achieve this. The Dunstan Thomas team will work with you to help you understand the options and design, build and support Cloud-based applications that integrate into your existing landscape. We can help you make the most of the benefits offered by Azure to build an application that gives you flexibility, scalability and a lower cost way of getting things done.

To find out more contact Dunstan Thomas on info@dthomas.co.uk, or 023 92 822254