Hedge IT: A hedge fund technology blog by Eze Castle Integration

Blog Entries from 04/2012

Hedge Fund Cloud Summit Draws a Crowd in New York

Posted by Kaleigh Alessandro on Thursday, April 26th, 2012

The atmosphere in the room was one of excitement and anticipation. Not something you’d expect for a conference dedicated to cloud computing? Think again.

We hosted our first-ever Hedge Fund Cloud Summit earlier this week at the Sofitel New York, bringing together over 100 operational and technology professionals from the investment industry for what truly was an exciting day.

Event hosts Bob Guilbert and Vinod Paul kicked off the afternoon by offering their perspective on the changes within the hedge fund market relative to cloud computing and why it has steadily become a reliable technology option for firms of all sizes and strategies. Five years ago, most hedge funds were involuntarily relying on traditional on-premise infrastructures marked by intricate Comm. Room build-outs and heavy upfront capital expenditures. The average cost for servers, storage, networking and other equipment? Two hundred to five hundred THOUSAND dollars.

Categorized under: Cloud Computing Trends We're Seeing

Eze London Employees - Why We Love Technology

Posted by Kulvinder Gill on Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

What would we do without technology in our daily lives? Technology has evolved over the years helping us with the way we communicate with one another to the mediums we use to obtain and share information.

Check out what Eze Castle's London employees had to say in the video below.

Categorized under: Trends We're Seeing

Recipe for Success: Key Ingredients for a Great Help Desk Team

Posted by Dina Ferriero on Thursday, April 19th, 2012

eze castle integration's help desk recipe for success Next week, our Global Support Group director, Dan Kummer, will be attending the Help Desk Institute’s 2012 Conference & Expo in sunny Orlando, Florida, where he will hear from some of the industry’s top experts and learn about new support desk technologies and trends.

As we look forward to this great event, we got to thinking about our own help desk team and support teams in general. What makes one help desk better than another? What are the key ingredients in providing the best possible IT support to clients?

Here are our thoughts.

Categorized under: Business Continuity Planning

eSentire: Bringing Security and Threat Management to a Hedge Fund Near You

Posted by Mary Beth Hamilton on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

The security threat landscape continues to evolve, and security through obscurity is no longer (and probably never was) an ideal approach to protecting the sensitive data of the hedge fund industry. A recent study by IBM found that cyber threats are expanding with 62% of managers believing that cyber threats are an increasingly serious risk to business.

The report found a 27% rise in cyber security vulnerabilities between 2009 and 2010 and noted that “early in 2011 officials at the International Monetary Fund revealed that it had been targeted by a sophisticated cyber attack – a threat that was considered so serious, the World Bank severed the computer ties through which the two organisations shared information.”

Another example cited was that “in June 2011 a black-hat hacker group known as LulzSec (or “Lulz Security”) targeted the website of the CIA in the US using a denial-of-service attack. This was the latest in a string of similar attacks against a range of government and public sector bodies.”

While these two examples occurred at large organizations, the risks facing smaller firms (read: hedge funds) are just as real. To that end, we recently had eSentire into our Boston office to speak with a group of hedge fund CTOs about the security landscape and their managed security technology. Feedback on eSentire’s offering and approach was positive and the spark for this tech spotlight article.

Categorized under: Security Cloud Computing Data Loss Prevention Eze Castle Milestones Hedge Fund Operations Infrastructure Trends We're Seeing

Clouds of Change for IT Pros: Cloud Admin's the new Sys Admin

Posted by Mary Beth Hamilton on Thursday, April 12th, 2012

On most days if you asked what I was doing on that exact day two years prior I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but today is different. Today is the second birthday for Hedge IT, our sweet, informative blog. So I know exactly what I was doing two years ago – I was writing and posting our first Hedge IT article, aptly titled “Welcome to Hedge IT.”

birthday cake Sticking with the theme of ‘welcome to…’ and giving a node to our upcoming Hedge Fund Cloud Summit, today’s post is a welcome to the changing world of IT – now that the business world is going to the cloud.

Paradigm shifts are commonplace in the IT world. When talking to an IT veteran about cloud, he/she will likely reflect on the move from centralized computing (mainframes/mini-computers) to decentralized computing (Windows NT/Novell) and now back to centralized computing with the cloud.

Categorized under: Cloud Computing Eze Castle Milestones Hedge Fund Operations Infrastructure Outsourcing Trends We're Seeing

A Sneak Peek at the Upcoming Hedge Fund Cloud Summit

Posted by Kaleigh Alessandro on Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

It’s the most talked about trend in technology these days. Then again, can it even be considered a trend anymore? Cloud computing has evolved into a credible technology solution for hedge funds and other financial services firms, allowing them to reduce their upfront capital expenditures and focus their priorities on investment decisions and other operational tasks.

But with so much buzz in the industry about the cloud, it seemed fitting to organize an event dedicated solely to this topic. Alas, it’s finally here.

In just two short weeks, Eze Castle Integration will be honored to host the 2012 Hedge Fund Cloud Summit – a half-day conference in New York City designed to dive deep into the critical areas of cloud computing that hedge funds and investment firms are compelled to think about on a daily basis.

The Cloud Summit will bring together more than 100 of the investment industry’s best and brightest technology and operations professionals and will feature expert speakers from some of the leading hedge funds, prime brokers and technology application partners in the industry.

Categorized under: Cloud Computing Hedge Fund Operations Outsourcing Trends We're Seeing

Launching a Hedge Fund – Technology Considerations

Posted by Kulvinder Gill on Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Last week, the Eze Castle Integration team in London hosted a breakfast seminar, in conjunction with HFMWeek, on how to successfully launch a hedge fund. The seminar featured a panel of experts:

Simon Eyre, Service Director at Eze Castle Integration
Bill Prew, COO at James Caird Asset Management
Gus Black, Partner at Dechert LLP
Jae Yung Kwon, EMEA Prime Brokerage, J.P. Morgan

Numerous topics were covered including investment strategies, approaches to raising capital, regulatory considerations, service provider selection, and technology systems. In today’s article we’d like to dive a little deeper into the key technology requirements that all funds must consider when starting up. These include infrastructure, telecommunication and compliance and archiving.

Categorized under: Launching A Hedge Fund

Opalesque TV Zooms In on Cloud Computing at Hedge Funds

Posted by Mary Beth Hamilton on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

Opalesque TV recently sat down with Vinod Paul (of Eze Castle Integration!) to discuss how cloud computing is altering the technology landscape in the hedge fund industry. The conversation covered a lot of ground including: