By John Landy, Intralinks – The discovery of the Heartbleed bug serves as a wake-up call to hedge funds and alternative investment managers. A single line of buggy code has put millions of web servers and users at risk of having their secure information stolen. If you think your business hasn’t been affected, it will be soon. While Heartbleed is noteworthy in its near universal impact, such risks and vulnerabilities are simply part of the modern, Internet-connected business world. Few hedge funds and alternative investment funds run an entirely self-contained, on-premise data center.  Most are using some form of cloud services,

Technology innovation sits naturally with software provider Backstop Solutions Group. After all, it was one of the pioneers of providing a Software-as-a-service platform to the alternative funds industry back in 2003 to help managers operate more efficiently. Increasingly, software providers are under pressure to support managers with solutions to establish data management best practices and operational robustness. By offering software solutions that span investor relations, CRM, sales & marketing and investor reporting, Backstop is empowering hedge fund managers to develop more efficient workflows that stand up to scrutiny when investors conduct operational due diligence.   “More and more, institutional investors

One of the unintended consequences of technology improvements in the hedge fund industry has been the sheer volume of data that service providers, in particular fund administrators, are required to manage on a daily basis. ‘Big data’, ‘data management’, ‘data farming’ – these terms are increasingly being used in the current vernacular.  With granular data comes greater transparency – something institutional investors are demanding of the managers they invest with. Chad Allen (pictured), Managing Director in UMB Fund Services’ alternative investment servicing division, says, “Historically, managers relied solely upon their in-house systems for information – but increasingly they are asking

New York-based Liquid Holdings is fast becoming a tour de force in the hedge fund industry. Born in the cloud, the firm offers hedge fund managers (typically USD1bn or less in AuM) a multi-tenant “true cloud” solution. Using cutting edge technology Liquid’s platform brings together low latency OERMS – order, execution and risk – capabilities backed by managed services, giving managers a scalable, cost-effective cloud environment in which to run their operations.  But this concept of “true cloud” does not apply wholesale. Previously, organisations outsourced their IT activity to application service providers (ASPs). “As an ASP you would have to

“Last November we surveyed over 100 hedge fund managers on their attitudes towards using the cloud, their concerns from a security and data ownership perspective and over 87 of respondents said they were using the cloud in some shape or form today,” comments Bob Guilbert, Managing Director at Eze Castle Integration, a provider of IT solutions and private cloud services to more than 650 global alternative fund managers. “Last year we brought on 102 new clients, 42 of which were start-ups.” Chris Nash is the Chief Operating Officer at Senrigan Capital, a Hong Kong-based USD340mn event-driven hedge fund. Whilst security