One of the greatest strengths of investment technology today is its optionality – allowing managers to tailor their technology to meet the specific needs of their firm and the demands of their investors.
From multi-asset trade support to the ability to access and visualize data from seemingly unlimited sources, you can strategically deploy a robust investment technology ecosystem that supports your unique goals.
When it comes to technology infrastructure, where and how you host is up to you. Deploy via public or private cloud or on-premise, manage your applications and architecture yourself or have a technology vendor or third party manage them for you.
If you do choose to have your applications and infrastructure hosted and managed by your technology provider, such a solution can greatly benefit your firm. Some of the advantages these managed applications offering can provide include:
- A Single Seamless Technology Experience: With one vendor for technology, architecture, and management, you receive a more seamless technology and service experience. If something goes wrong at any point in your technology lifecycle, you have a single contact with full visibility into your technological scenario for faster issue resolution.
- Decrease Risk; Increase Focus: When you choose a trusted managed services provider, you have experts hard at work maximizing the availability and performance of your technology with tools such as:
- Server environments built specifically for application requirements
- Top-tier, resilient, and secure data centers
- 24×7 application and infrastructure monitoring
- Fully replicated data for streamlined disaster recovery
This allows you to reallocate internal resources once spent maintaining your architecture to higher-impact tasks for your business.
- Onboard, Upgrade, and Access New Features Faster: With no hardware installation, managed applications deployed via the cloud can get you up and running in less time than a typical on-site implementation. Updates, patches, and upgrades are made with minimal disruption to your business, ensuring you can take advantage of new technology and functionality faster.
What are Managed Applications?
Managed applications, typically offered through managed services, offer the infrastructure you'd expect from a hosting provider plus the management of that architecture, services like testing disaster recovery and security protocols, fully replicated data, issue resolution, and more, all from your existing technology provider.
Zero Lift Upgrades – Agility without Disruption
Another benefit of leveraging managed applications for investment technology and infrastructure management is the option of Zero-Lift Upgrades (ZLUs), also referred to as managed migrations or managed upgrades. Zero-lift upgrades are automatic and regular updates to your technology deployed by your managed applications provider.
With such a service, gone are the days of disruptive or complicated upgrades monopolizing team time and causing downtime for your firm. Zero-lift upgrades require no manual intervention from your teams and can be done after the close of business, minimizing disruption for your firm.
Any quality provider should be regularly releasing updates, and, like managed applications, zero-lift upgrades allow you to take advantage of the latest features and fixes faster. It also allows you to upgrade more frequently as new functionality is released, ensuring you’re operating on the latest and greatest and eliminating the risk and hassle of orchestrating a large annual or bi-annual upgrade.
This is especially important in today’s rapidly evolving investment environment. Facing sustained fee pressure, rising operational costs, and the threat of volatility, firms must remain agile. Knowing you’re operating on the latest version of your technology instills the confidence that your operations can evolve in line with your strategies.
For example, if your technology provider releases expanded support for an instrument you’re looking to add to your strategy, you can take advantage of that offering fast without burdening your team or hindering your firm’s productivity.
Such a solution also comes with expert support and monitoring. Not only are your upgrades deployed by experts in the solution – individuals who are leading similar upgrades for dozens of other firms – but zero-lift upgrades also include automated testing by your provider, so you can rest assured that any issues will be identified and addressed by experts in the technology.
Managed Applications and Zero-Lift Upgrades from SS&C
An all-in-one solution for investment technology, managed applications, and zero-lift upgrades can enhance efficiency, mitigate risk, and increase agility. By entrusting these tasks to experienced providers, firms can free up resources for higher-impact initiatives, ensuring they remain competitive in today’s dynamic investment landscape.
SS&C offers such a solution with its managed applications offering – a highly secure, efficient, and cost-effective alternative to on-premise software implementations. With this offering, firms can take advantage of the latest and greatest in investment technology without disruption with Zero-Lift Upgrades.
Learn how you can increase efficiency and agility at your firm with Managed Applications.
