Modernizing IT infrastructure for Mirae Asset Capital Markets Company

About Client

Mirae Asset Capital Markets (India) is a prominent financial services company offering its clients a range of financial products and services. This project focuses on the company’s IT infrastructure modernization initiative to support growing business needs and maintain a competitive edge in the dynamic financial market.

Industry

Financial Services / Capital Markets

The financial services industry, particularly the capital markets sector, is known for needing high-performance, secure, and scalable IT infrastructure. Technology is a crucial enabler in maintaining competitive advantage and adherence to regulatory requirements in this domain.

Approach

The primary approach provided was a comprehensive migration from on-premises infrastructure to AWS cloud, coupled with deploying an AWS Landing Zone using AWS Control Tower, Terraform, and a CI/CD pipeline. This holistic approach ensured a high focus on cloud adoption, security, scalability, and operational efficiency.

Business Need

Mirae Asset Capital Markets identified several critical business needs that prompted their cloud migration initiative, including:

• Establish a secure, scalable, and compliant multi-account AWS environment
• Streamline cloud infrastructure management
• Enhance operational efficiency and governance
• Support evolving business requirements
• Improve application performance and availability
• Optimize cost structure for IT operations

These requirements stemmed from the company’s desire to leverage cloud technologies, provide its clients with competitive financial services, and ensure robust security and compliance measures.

Business Challenges

Mirae Asset Capital Markets faced numerous challenges with its IT infrastructure, hindering its ability to scale and innovate efficiently. These challenges included:

• Multiple design decisions for integrating new projects and solutions
• Management and team collaboration challenges
• Segregation of duties across multiple accounts
• Compliance and risk management complexities
• Lack of centralized policy management and auditing
• Performance, availability, and latency issues with trading-related applications
• Difficulty in maintaining physical server infrastructure
• Performance bottlenecks during peak hours
• Limited scalability to meet fluctuating demand
• Cost inefficiencies during non-business hours
• Increased page load times and application response times
• Remote user connection timeouts
• Legacy applications and unsupported operating systems

These challenges highlighted the need for a comprehensive cloud migration strategy that could address both technical and operational issues.

Business Solution

A comprehensive cloud migration and modernization solution was proposed to address the identified challenges. The critical components of this solution included:

• Implementing AWS Landing Zone with Control Tower
• Utilizing Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IaaC)
• Integrating CI/CD pipeline for automated deployment
• Setting up multi-account structure (Transit, Log Archival, Security/Audit, Non-Production, Production, Organization, Shared Services)
• Implementing security measures and compliance guardrails
• Establishing centralized logging and monitoring
• Configuring network security using Next Generation Firewall
• Implementing identity and access management with least privilege principle
• Setting up data encryption for both in-transit and at-rest data
• Utilizing AWS services like GuardDuty, CloudTrail, and AWS Backup

This solution was designed to provide a secure, scalable, and efficient cloud environment that aligned with industry best practices and addressed Mirae Asset Capital Markets’ specific needs.

Technology Stack

The proposed solution leveraged a robust and modern technology stack to ensure optimal performance, security, and scalability. The key components included:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the primary cloud platform
• AWS Control Tower for multi-account management
• Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IaaC)
• CI/CD Pipeline tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI) for automated deployments
• AWS services: EC2, EBS, RDS, EKS, VPC, Direct Connect, GuardDuty, CloudTrail, S3, Glacier, IAM, SSO, KMS

This technology stack provided comprehensive tools and services to support cloud infrastructure migration and ongoing management.

Project Differentiator

Several vital factors differentiated this project and made it particularly significant for the company, including:

• Comprehensive migration strategy combining Landing Zone setup and application migration
• Use of Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and CI/CD pipeline for automated, consistent deployments
• Integration of security and compliance measures throughout the architecture
• Tailored multi-account structure to meet specific organizational needs

These differentiators ensured that the solution was not a lift-and-shift migration but a value-driven transformation initiative that poised the company for future growth and innovation.

Business Impact

The implementation of this cloud migration and modernization solution had substantially positive impacts on Mirae Asset Capital Markets (India) business operations, including:

• Enhanced security and compliance posture
• Improved scalability and flexibility of IT infrastructure
• Increased operational efficiency through automation
• Better governance and control over cloud resources
• Optimized cost management
• Improved performance and availability of applications
• Enhanced ability to innovate and adapt to business objectives

These impacts contributed to the company’s overall competitiveness, operational efficiency, and ability to serve its clients effectively.

Conclusion

The cloud migration and modernization solution offered Mirae Asset Capital Markets a comprehensive approach to transform its IT infrastructure. The company achieved a secure, scalable, and efficient cloud environment by implementing a well-architected Landing Zone with Control Tower, utilizing Terraform for infrastructure as code, and integrating a CI/CD pipeline.

This solution addressed their current challenges and provided a solid foundation for future growth and innovation in their IT infrastructure. This modernized infrastructure will enable Mirae Asset Capital Markets to stay ahead of its competitors, offering improved services to its clients while maintaining stringent security and adherence to regulatory requirements.