How hybrid and multi-cloud strategies are driving business growth at Samco Securities

In an exclusive interview with Pratik Adani, CTO and Co-founder of Samco Securities, we gain valuable insights into the significance of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies in driving business growth in today’s dynamic digital landscape.

Adani emphasises how these strategies empower organisations to harness the flexibility, scalability, and resilience offered by a combination of private and public cloud platforms. This strategic approach optimises IT infrastructure, streamlines operations, and fosters the agility necessary to thrive in a rapidly evolving market.

The interview delves into Samco’s industry-first innovations, their use of emerging technologies, and their approach to ensuring data security and compliance in a multi-cloud environment. Additionally, Adani shares Samco’s plans for scaling up the business in the coming year, highlighting a commitment to innovation, infrastructure optimisation, and strategic partnerships to meet the evolving needs of its growing customer base.

Here are the edited excerpts-

1. Could you shed some light on the industry-first innovations that Samco securities have brought in?

In leveraging both our technological prowess and deep-rooted domain expertise, Samco Securities has introduced several industry-first initiatives to significantly enhance the investing and trading experience for our clients.

Personal index: For the first time, we’ve democratised access to the weighted Rate of Return (TWRR), a performance measure traditionally accessible only to institutional players like Mutual Funds and Portfolio Management Schemes. This feature is available for free on our CRP Platform, empowering retail investors to evaluate their portfolios with institutional-grade accuracy.

My trade story: This is a unique engine that dissects past trades to offer unseen insights, termed “Andekha Sach”. Parameters like the Samco Success Probability (SSP) Ratio, Strike rate, and P&L analytics are some of the metrics that traders can use to refine their strategies.

My trade spreadsheet: This feature provides three types of trade-level insights: Round Trade View, trade-level insights (covering strategies like average up/down), and Performance level insights that identify outperforming and underperforming trades.

These initiatives build upon our past innovations such as our proprietary Stocknote News engine, personalised Event Calendars based on individual portfolios, and deep market insights like real-time market movers and FII/DII activity.

These are not just technological advancements; they are strategic tools that have revolutionised the way our clients interact with the financial markets.

2. What cloud approach- hybrid/multi-cloud is Samco using the drive effective business growth?

At SAMCO, we have implemented a strategic hybrid cloud approach to support our rapid business growth, blending the use of both private and public clouds to optimise performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Here’s how:

Private cloud for core operations: We’ve established a private cloud infrastructure through partnerships with industry leaders like DELL, Palo Alto, and VMware. For instance, our collaboration with DELL enabled us to implement cutting-edge PowerStore technology for storage. This private cloud enhances control, data security, and performance while providing financial flexibility for scalable growth.

Public cloud for backups and DR: We use public clouds for two specific purposes:

Passive backups and storage: Leveraging the cost-effectiveness of public cloud solutions, we keep passive backups and additional storage on these platforms.

Disaster recovery (DR) site: The public cloud also serves as an active DR site. In case of a catastrophic failure or other emergency situations affecting our private cloud, we can quickly switch to our public cloud resources to maintain business continuity.

Kubernetes and K8 for scalability: Our private cloud infrastructure is designed to scale up or down based on demand, thanks in part to container orchestration technologies like Kubernetes and K8. This ensures that we can quickly adapt to market needs without compromising on performance or incurring unnecessary costs.

High availability and clustering: Using emerging technologies like Kafka, Redis, and Mongo in cluster modes, we ensure that our services are always available and data retrieval is swift, further bolstering our operational effectiveness.

By employing a hybrid cloud approach, we manage to strike a balance between control, cost, and scalability. This cloud strategy is integral to Samco’s effective business growth and enables us to provide continuous, secure, and high-quality services to our clients.

3. How do you ensure data security and compliance in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment?

In today’s increasingly interconnected and regulated digital landscape, ensuring data security and compliance is not just a need but a requirement for maintaining user trust and business continuity. Here are some points on how Samco ensures data security and compliance in our hybrid or multi-cloud environment:

Tech committee: A specialised tech committee drives all internal policies related to data and cloud security. This committee is responsible for keeping abreast of the latest compliance regulations and ensuring that Samco is always in compliance. They work in close coordination with the sec-ops team to implement these policies effectively.

Multi-layer security: We employ a multi-layer security approach that includes firewalls, encryption, and secure data transmission protocols. Our partnership with Palo Alto has particularly helped us in this regard.

Disaster recovery and backup: In our hybrid cloud strategy, we use public clouds as active DR site and for passive backups. This ensures that even in the case of a disaster or system failure, our data remains secure and the services can be restored quickly, thereby mitigating any risks associated with data loss or downtime.

4. What technologies or solutions do you rely on to manage and monitor your hybrid or multi-cloud environments effectively?

Effectively managing and monitoring a hybrid or multi-cloud environment requires a mix of technologies and solutions that offer visibility, control, and scalability. Here’s how Samco approaches this:

Container orchestration with kubernetes and K8: We rely on Kubernetes and its lightweight version K8 for the orchestration of our containerised applications. This enables us to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of applications across our cloud environments.

High availability and data distribution with Kafka, Redis, and Mongo: Kafka is used for real-time data streaming and processing, while Redis and Mongo in cluster modes ensure high availability and fast data retrieval. This suite of technologies allows us to maintain a high level of service reliability and data integrity.

Infrastructure monitoring tools: We use specialised monitoring tools that integrate well with our existing technologies and offer real-time analytics and insights into system performance. This includes solutions for logging, alerting, and dashboard visualisation.

Security monitoring with Palo Alto solutions: In partnership with Palo Alto, we have implemented advanced firewalls and security protocols that allow for continuous monitoring and immediate response to any security threats or breaches.

VMware for virtualisation: We make use of VMware solutions for managing our virtual environments, which provides us with the flexibility to quickly allocate resources where they are most needed.

DELL PowerStore for Storage Management: Our recent partnership with DELL has allowed us to upgrade our storage systems with their latest PowerStore technology. This provides us with a high level of control over our data storage and management capabilities.

Automated backup and DR solutions: For backups and disaster recovery, we use automated solutions that regularly snapshot our critical data and services. These can be quickly restored in the event of a system failure or data loss.

Internal software and dashboards: Custom-built internal software and dashboards help us to have a unified view of all our cloud resources. These tools are developed in-house to specifically meet the unique needs and challenges of our business.

5. As per you, how can organisations ensure seamless integration and interoperability among different cloud providers?

Ensuring seamless integration and interoperability among different cloud providers is a challenging yet critical aspect for organisations looking to make the most out of a multi-cloud environment. Here are some best practices that organisations can adopt:

Standardisation and open standards:
Use of standardised APIs: Utilising standardised APIs can make it easier to move applications, data, and processes between different cloud services.
Open standards: Opting for cloud solutions that adhere to open standards can improve interoperability, making it easier to integrate different cloud environments.

Planning and architecture:
Well-defined Architecture: Organisations should establish a well-defined cloud architecture and governance model that aligns with their multi-cloud strategy.
Integration points: Prioritise identifying key integration points between different cloud services and plan how services will communicate with each other.

Data management:
Data format & protocols: Make sure that data formats and protocols are consistent across the various cloud providers to enable seamless data migration and integration.
Data governance: A well-structured data governance policy can help in maintaining data consistency and integrity across multiple clouds.

Security and compliance:
Unified security policies: Establish unified security policies that can be applied across multiple cloud environments. This may involve using security solutions that are cloud-agnostic.

Regulatory compliance: Ensure that all cloud providers in use comply with the industry-specific regulations and certifications. This will help in maintaining a uniform level of security.

By adopting these best practices, organisations can better position themselves for successful integration and interoperability among different cloud providers, enabling them to leverage the full potential of a multi-cloud strategy.

6. How do you plan to scale up your business in the coming year?

Scaling up our business is a multi-faceted endeavor that requires meticulous planning, technological upgrades, and strategic partnerships.

Through these strategies and initiatives, Samco aims to scale its operations effectively, keeping in line with our long-term vision and the increasing demands of our expanding customer base.

Here’s how we plan to scale Samco in the coming year:

New features and services: Innovations will enrich the user experience and offer more value to clients.
Optimised infrastructure: Leveraging the power of Kubernetes and K8, we plan to make our infrastructure more elastic.
Bare-metal boxes for high processing: We intend to shift to using bare-metal boxes for all our high-processing computational software.
On-prem private cloud for internal software: Plans are in the pipeline to set up an on-prem private cloud specifically for managing all our internal software applications.