‘This Pandemic Has Highlighted The Importance Of Cloud System’: Anand Chandra, Synechron

In their new partnership, Synechron would be providing cloud-based solution architecture and operating models to support both the migration of legacy processes, as well as establishing the cloud for new business activities for its clients. Synechron’s Google Cloud Centre of Excellence comprises a global group of Google Cloud accredited architects, data engineers and developers who have designed and developed enterprise-grade, cloud-hosted solutions. Mutual clients will be able to create an application landing zone with confidence for their ecosystems with Synechron’s cloud migration expertise and managed services framework, increasing operational efficiency and delivering cost leverage.

Express Computer gets into an engaging conversation with Anand Chandra who leads the Technology Practice across UK, Europe and APAC and is responsible for establishing Techno-Functional competency in Synechron focused around Cloud capabilities in Google Cloud, MS Azure across Wholesale, Retail, Institution, Private Banking, Wealth & Asset Management. Edited excerpts:

Could you acquaint us with your recent partnership with Google Cloud?

We recently announced our partnership with Google Cloud to further expand our existing cloud offerings to our clients in financial services. We aim to provide cloud engineering combined with emerging technologies to support both Heritage Modernisation and Ecosystem Innovation, as well as allow our clients provide their customers with digital-first experiences that are secure, seamless and built for the 21st century.

Synechron is working with Google Cloud on live engagements across the UK, The Netherlands and APAC. As part of our Digital Ecosystem Accelerator program, we leveraged Google Cloud suite to create our Treasury-as-a-Service API Orchestration Accelerator called ‘Liquify’. Liquify creates an API-enabled ecosystem that automates a bank’s treasury, liquidity, and cash management functions across different siloed departments within a business division. This accelerator brings together multiple APIs into a microservices layer running in the cloud and then pushes them through an API-Gateway, allowing each API plug-in to serve an independent function free from any existing monolithic systems.

How is Synechron looking forward to expanding its cloud offerings?

We are working alongside our clients on their cloud strategy, feasibility, technology architecture and engineering programs. We are investing heavily into building our Google Cloud Platform capabilities to partner with our clients across multiple regions and have more than 200+ engineers who are being trained on the Google Cloud Platform stack across different modules.

Google cloud practice focus at Synechron is to take value proposition to our clients which includes Analytics API (custom built Real-time & Batch Processing with Microservices on Cloud for cloud-based data engineering), Cloud Adoption Program (Engineering approach to Cloud Migration as part of Heritage Modernization from assessment to evaluation to execution using Synechron CAP – Cloud Adoption Program), Open API Marketplace (Synechron’s Treasury-as-a-Service Open Banking Cash Management lets banks offer a Treasury-as-a-Service via their platform for intraday cash sweeping) & Big Data on GCP (Infrastructure-as-a-service for Big Data technologies, a MongoDB IaaS being designed & architected for a Tier 1 Bank currently).

Which type of cloud (Public, Private, Hybrid) is best suited for organisations now that they are working remotely?

The cross-over path has Cloud Native vs retire technical debt is somewhere between migration and reinvention. Financial services are moving towards Hybrid cloud strategy to leverage best of features across cloud providers and its followed by multi-cloud strategy where the services are configured across providers. The future will see less of private cloud (interconnected network of VMs) and Public cloud adoption will see a drop due to better data governance with Hybrid cloud implementation.

The financial services industry will witness an accelerated adoption of cloud-driven by the pandemic. It is not optional to move to cloud anymore, it is essential. This pandemic has highlighted the importance of deploying a flexible and scalable cloud system to remain agile and adaptable to get work done in a fluctuating ecosystem. Financial services clients have adopted DevOps first strategy on migration to explore opportunities on cost optimization and operational efficiency. The current thinking is to leverage Application hosting, data management & compute offerings on cloud and associate them with benefits value chain restructuring opportunities. The wider direction of travel is build hybrid cloud target state to leverage best of security, storage and disruptive technologies (Big Data & Native AI tooling). BFSI, being a highly regulated industry, will benefit from a hybrid cloud model. Hybrid cloud solutions due to reduced infrastructure cost, flexibility, better workforce collaboration allow businesses to scale, irrespective of the size of the organisation.

Do you think there are any challenges involved in the adoption of cloud at a time when working from home has been the new normal?

The current “new normal” is more trust based and then it was before. The basis of emerging technologies like Blockchain, low-code platforms, Cloud and deep learning models are basis of trust and tactical deduction of ROI which is both sentiment and data based. Cloud programs in new normal are being tuned to “Assembly line delivery model” where Core engineering team will be at Program Vertical (PV) level who would comprise of required expertise from Enterprise group and will be responsible for designing the solution and assisting the implementation. The Delivery and DevOps representation in the enterprise group will ensure execution and rollouts. Implementation team would operate like an assembly line with Design & QC team working remotely & Support team will be a shared services model, working remotely.

Due to the ongoing global crisis, attackers can capitalise on rapid change, confusion, and take advantage of the vulnerability of the systems. It is crucial to enhance security policies relevant to the COVID-19 situation to include remote working access management, the use of personal devices and home networks and the associated risks involved. Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) use advanced firewall technology like Web Access Firewalls, application services, layering and micro-segmentation to safeguard their clients from cyberattacks. The last couple of months saw increased migration of workload to the cloud and moving applications to the cloud can result in extensive troubleshooting and application downtime.