Elastic Cloud empowers financial institutions to optimize data retention, ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and PCI DSS, and contain costs with advanced tiering and searchable snapshots.
As the amount of data being created and stored worldwide is increasing rapidly, financial institutions are tasked more with managing vast volumes of data while ensuring compliance with stringent regulatory requirements. These regulations, such as GDPR, MiFID II, PCI DSS, and SOX, can vary significantly depending on jurisdiction and often require the retention of data for extended periods — sometimes ranging from three to ten years. The data that falls under these regulations is vast, covering transaction data, communication data, audit logs, and more. And this is not just a legal obligation but also a critical component of maintaining high customer service standards and operational integrity.
As every attorney in the securities industry knows, the first order of business in any case is to make a motion to preserve and retain all forms of communications. That could be text messages, emails, or messages that were transmitted through any kind of electronic communication like social media apps or messaging apps. As it turns out, managing to retain and produce this data across electronic communications can be a challenging task for financial services companies. This Reuters article outlines the complexities of data management and highlights the cost associated for being in violation of SEC recordkeeping requirements.
Elastic Cloud offers robust solutions to help financial services companies meet their compliance requirements efficiently and cost-effectively.
Table of Contents
Lowering data storage costs with Elasticsearch logsdb index mode
Elasticsearch logsdb index mode can significantly reduce data storage costs by efficiently storing and searching essential log data. Logsdb index mode can cut data storage costs by up to 65%, making it a strategic choice for financial services companies looking to optimize their data management budgets. By using logsdb index mode, financial services companies can maintain comprehensive log data for compliance and auditing purposes without running up excessive costs. This capability ensures that critical log data remains accessible and manageable, supporting long-term data retention strategies while adhering to budget constraints.
Optimized and cost-effective data tiers
Unlike other data platform leaders, Elastic’s data tiering approach optimizes data management by categorizing data into storage tiers based on access frequency and cost:
-
Hot tier: Designed for frequently accessed, critical data that you need to analyze quickly. Data in the hot tier is typically retained for one to seven days for immediate analysis.
-
Cold tier: Suitable for infrequently accessed, read-only data and uses low-cost object storage like AWS S3. It balances cost and performance through caching and partial restores.
-
Frozen tier: Ideal for long-term retention, storing data entirely in object storage for up to two years or longer. Elasticsearch’s unique searchable snapshots capability enables direct searches without any rehydration and maintains efficient search performance. Most Elastic customers adopt a hot-frozen architecture, where data is stored for one to three days in the hot tier and the rest are in the frozen tier. This approach significantly reduces costs while retaining high levels of search performance.
Elastic’s cold and frozen tiers perform with search speeds comparable to competitors’ hot tiers, often eliminating the need for a warm tier. This approach allows storage of up to 20 times more read-only data at the same cost — reducing total ownership costs and enhancing data availability, compliance, and business outcomes.
Adding value through searchable snapshots
Searchable snapshots allow you to retain data in low-cost object storage that’s managed through Elastic and to search without rehydration — avoiding delays, transit costs, and potential data residency issues. This is particularly beneficial for data in the frozen tier, where the cost of storage is minimized. However, the data remains accessible for analytical and compliance purposes.
-
Snapshot creation: Data from the Elastic cluster is periodically captured and stored as snapshots in the chosen object storage repository. These snapshots are point-in-time copies of indices.
-
Searchability: Unlike traditional snapshots that require rehydration before querying, searchable snapshots enable direct querying of data stored in object storage.
-
Cost efficiency: By storing data in object storage through Elastic, financial services companies benefit from the lower costs associated with these services compared to traditional block storage.
-
Fast performance via cache: Elastic uses cache for frequently used searches, which speeds up queries. If a search requires data that is not in the cache, Elasticsearch fetches the missing data from the snapshot repository. Searches that require these fetches are slower, but the fetched data is stored in the cache so that similar searches can be served more quickly in the future. Elasticsearch will evict infrequently used data from the cache to free up space. The cache is cleared when a node is restarted.
This approach significantly reduces the total cost of ownership, making it an ideal choice for financial services companies focused on cost containment.
Using a snapshot repository to offload longer-term data
Elastic integrates with multiple object storage solutions, allowing financial institutions to offload data to a repository of their choice, such as AWS, Azure Blob Storage, or Google Cloud Platform. Elasticsearch also offers the option to store data locally for use cases that require regulation or data sovereignty.
Here’s how it works:
-
Set up repository: In Elastic Cloud, configure a snapshot repository using your preferred cloud storage service. This involves setting up the necessary credentials and permissions to allow Elastic to store and retrieve data from your chosen storage solution.
-
Create searchable snapshots: Once the repository is configured, create searchable snapshots of your indices. These snapshots are stored in the configured repository and can be queried directly without needing to restore them to the Elastic cluster.
-
Optimize costs and flexibility: By using your own storage accounts, you maintain control over your data and can optimize costs based on specific performance needs and retention requirements. Searchable snapshots provide a cost-effective way to retain long-term data while ensuring it remains accessible for analytical and compliance purposes.
A scalable solution for data growth
Elastic’s data tiering strategy — from hot to frozen — provides financial services companies with a powerful, cost-effective solution for managing long-term data retention and compliance. By using advanced features, such as searchable snapshots and tiered storage, financial organizations can ensure regulatory compliance, optimize operational efficiency, and maintain customer trust — all while controlling costs.
As financial services continue to navigate the explosion of data (often in a legacy systems environment), tools like Elastic Cloud will be indispensable in enabling smarter, more agile data management.
For more detailed guidance on setting up searchable snapshots and integrating with cloud storage, see Elastic’s documentation guides or reach out to us directly.
The release and timing of any features or functionality described in this post remain at Elastic’s sole discretion. Any features or functionality not currently available may not be delivered on time or at all.
Leave a Reply