LSEG Faces Culture Shock Implementing its Cloud-First Program

Even as the M&A winds swirl around the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG)—whether it’s them buying Refinitiv, or them as the acquired—the exchange is moving forward with an ambitious program where 60% of service delivery and corporate computing would operate in the public cloud by 2021.

While speaking at the Extent Conference, hosted by Exactpro, in London on September 17, Ann Neidenbach, chief information officer of LSEG, noted that the company has already moved 40 workloads to the cloud but they have encountered something of a people problem, as this project aims to institutionalize a DevOps methodology for cloud deployment going forward.

We are struggling to free up resources internally to help us on this journey. London is tapped out in terms of this kind of talent; in terms of infrastructure code and infrastructure people. It is a very tight market here.

Ann Neidenbach

“As you have that culture transition, it is hard for the developers to go through this transition,” Neidenbach said. “‘What do you mean they rejected my code? Why can’t I move this server? Why can’t I do this, this, this in order to pass our chief information security officer’s checklist?’” a developer may now ask, she added.

This Cloud-First Program presents a new operating model that is being developed to support pilot deployments on Amazon Web Services. It should also be noted that LSEG also works with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform as part of its multi-cloud strategy. The program also incorporates a new testing strategy, which was developed to validate key metrics as part of the project, including performance, resiliency, and availability.

Of course, there are always going to be technological and governance-related challenges when it comes to migration projects like this, but Neidenbach was a bit surprised by the cultural shift that’s had to take place.

She explained that developers are having to transition to a new form of working that involves new governance and compliance structures; tech teams have to adjust to cloud security policies, new development guidelines, and understanding how to safely and efficiently move between cloud and on-premise environments. In the case of a cloud DevOps environment, developers have the ability to spin up an environment in minutes and script functionality, which is also then instantly validated and tested against regulatory demands.

Outside Help

Neidenbach said that it’s important for firms undergoing cloud migrations to look at the world differently in terms of cloud compliance. To help with the transformation project, the technology and exchange group outsourced teams to help with the building of landing zones, which are configured environments with embedded security standards, policies, and best practices that assist firms as they transition to a cloud infrastructure.

“You bump into a hundred reasons, why you can’t get this done,” Neidenbach explained during the presentation. “‘There is not enough time,’ ‘I don’t have the skills,’ ‘I don’t know how to do that.’ So what we did bring in an integrator to help us and get that started.”

Another reason why it’s necessary to find third-party help for these projects is because London is “tapped out” in terms of talent, according to Neidenbach, as the likes of HSBC and Amazon are on hiring binges for cloud engineers and professionals.

“Because we are going through such a tech transformation, we are struggling to free up resources internally to help us on this journey,” she said. “London is tapped out in terms of this kind of talent; in terms of infrastructure code and infrastructure people. It is a very tight market here.”