time and incorporate automation to remove
human-factor interruption. The other was with
enterprise movement of data to support all business
lines within our organization.
To make the first migrations smooth and timely, and
to show off the power of our ecosystem, we moved
the application stack for the entire division. We went
through the division’s inventory and rearchitected
the applications directly into the cloud. We were sure
to guard against building everything so tightly cou-
pled to AWS that it would not be portable to another
provider in the future; this ability to de-couple the
open source stack that we leveraged was pivotal in
our cloud strategy.
We also used the cloud to lower the risks of moving
data between departments. Moving to the cloud pro-
vided transparency for our systems and identified
optimal functionality. It improved the flow of portfo-
lio and sales data and reduced the risk of delays in our
daily file delivery processing. In our industry, time is
an important factor, so we focus on driving process
efficiencies and trade execution to meet daily mile-
stones; time-to-process metric is a key element.
Unexpected Challenges
We addressed some unexpected engineering chal-
lenges encountered along the way. For example, we
rolled out a new framework for job automation and
migrated our two-year-old services to the new envi-
Over three years later,
we have eliminated our
physical data center
footprint and moved
nearly all our workloads
to the cloud.
ronment. We will continue to evaluate and reassess
our decisions and bring new services up as needed.
This is a conservative approach to continuous
improvement of systems, but provides far less opera-
tional disruption, which is a key performance indica-
tor for this initiative.
Conclusion
Though our move to the cloud remains an ongoing
process, we have succeeded not only in migrating off
our data center, but also in creating a resilient infra-
structure. Our systems are more stable, resilient and
scalable without being bound by a particular physical
location (geo-diversity is a key element of our future
internal IT resiliency standards). We have reduced
our risks, eliminated human-factor oversight when
appropriate and saved on costs across the board.
Mission accomplished.
George Marootian is Executive Vice President and
Head of Technology for US Distribution at Natixis
Investment Managers. This is the first article of a
three-part series that will discuss the firm’s move to
the cloud, continued operations in AWS, and the inno-
vation and agility the organization has benefitted
from since the migration.
Natixis Global Asset Management is a multi-affiliate
organization that offers a single point of access to
more than 20 specialized investment firms in the
Americas, Europe and Asia. The firm ranks among the
world’s largest asset managers. Through its Durable
Portfolio Construction philosophy, the company is
dedicated to providing innovative ideas on asset allo-
cation and risk management that can help institu-
tions, advisors and individuals address a range of
modern market challenges.
This material is provided for informational purposes only. Natixis
Distribution, L.P. is a limited purpose broker-dealer and the distrib-
utor of various registered investment companies for which advisory
services are provided by affiliates of Natixis Investment Managers.
Natixis Distribution, L.P. is located at 888 Boylston Street, Suite 800,
Boston, MA 02199. • 800-862-4863 • im.natixis.com
SUMMER 2018 | THE DOPPLER | 43