Financial institutions require robust risk management, real-time analytics, and unwavering compliance adherence, so the underlying data infrastructure plays a crucial role. One of NIAXO’s recent engagements involved partnering with a finance research and technology firm seeking to replace their existing HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) environment with Elastic.

The organisation had already embarked on implementing Elastic to address the challenges inherent in their HDFS platform for processing, querying, and analysing logs. However, they needed in-depth expertise to ensure the new system was not only optimally configured but also capable of securely handling vast amounts of data. Ensuring regulatory compliance, data security, and timely risk insights is paramount in the financial sector, so this transition had to be seamless.

The client required assistance with a diverse range of tasks, including deploying Elastic on Kubernetes, setting up Index Lifecycle Management (ILM) for automated data management, implementing data tiering to enhance performance, and configuring snapshot and restore functionalities using #AWS repositories. These features were critical to maintaining operational continuity, ensuring compliance, and delivering real-time risk assessments—all whilst mitigating data security threats.

Having assessed the client’s existing architecture, tailored guidance on the design decisions, sizing, and cluster setup was provided. The NIAXO team demonstrated best practice options, from ILM configurations to data tiering strategies, and established a robust snapshot and restore procedure using AWS repositories, ensuring reliable backups and streamlined recovery. Throughout the project, our team offered ongoing assistance to diagnose and resolve technical issues quickly, guaranteeing uninterrupted access to essential data insights throughout the task.

The finance firm successfully completed their Elastic environment setup, achieving a well-architected solution that outperformed their previous HDFS system. Tasks that once felt tedious and time-consuming became more efficient, allowing for quicker threat detection, improved compliance reporting, and ultimately more confident decision-making. The firm’s engineering team also grew proficient in Elastic, enabling them to conduct ongoing improvements and expansions long after our engagement. By adopting best practices in data tiering, ILM, and snapshot and restore, they enhanced their overall system performance, scalability, and resilience—three pillars essential to staying competitive and secure in the financial sector.

Immediate and tangible benefits can be achieved by modernising your data architecture to meet ever-growing regulatory and compliance demands. By switching from HDFS to Elastic, you can accelerate risk identification, simplify compliance processes, and fortify data security—key priorities for organisations striving to remain resilient in an increasingly complex digital landscape.