Everything Comes at a Cost, Even Cloud
June 2, 2014
Grazed from WatersTechnology. Author: Max Bowie.
Any discussion of return on investment relies on the ability to measure two things: the return generated, and the amount spent to achieve it. In the world of market data, the question is, “How much money can I make as a result of buying and using dataset x, net of the cost of that dataset?” In many cases, this is quantifiable, and traders have used this very argument to justify buying expensive data services.
However, over the past few lean years, one of the main drivers of any meager spend increases has been regulatory compliance—an area of spend that firms are reluctant to swallow because it is not something that offers any monetary return on their investment, unless you count avoiding non-compliance fines. So, many firms are looking to cloud computing to deliver cost savings around these initiatives as the “least bad” option to reduce a cost burden that didn’t exist until recently…
And with its FinQloud capital markets-dedicated cloud offering—based on Amazon Web Services’ cloud—Nasdaq has done much to bring cloud computing to a financial community that traditionally eyes new technologies with suspicion, especially those originating outside the financial sphere. However, the exchange recently sent notices to clients announcing that it will stop re-selling AWS services, and will discontinue support for its R3 regulatory archiving and retrieval service…
Read more from the source @ http://www.waterstechnology.com/inside-market-data/opinion/2347607/opening-cross-everything-comes-at-a-cost-even-cloud