Perspective: Cloud Computing in Capital Markets

This IDC Financial Insights Perspective presents highlights from the Wall Street & Technology Capital Markets Cloud Symposium. IDC Financial Insights closely monitors the traction and trends in cloud computing for capital markets. To do this, we survey, have conversations with, and meet end users to better understand their efforts to date. This Perspective offers some of the latest thinking from end users out of the Wall Street & Technology Capital Markets Cloud Symposium event I attended on May 17, 2011. The event was mainly a series of sessions where technology executives from large capital markets firms discussed their current cloud efforts. This document provides an update on cloud and the latest adoption trends, benefits these firms have observed, suggested best practices, and thoughts regarding the vendor community.

The major takeaways from the event are:

• Private infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) projects dominate cloud deployment for capital markets firms.
• Time to market is the largest benefit that these firms have observed.
• Obsessive planning and managing culture are necessary for successful implementations.