A European Leading Stock Exchange and Apps Associates Drive Strategic IT Modernization with AWS

Our customer, one of Europe’s leading stock exchanges, has earned recognition for its innovative approach in trading equities, bonds, derivatives, and digital assets. Historically operating with isolated data silos, they embarked on a mission in 2010 to create a centralized, trustworthy data repository with robust governance to support its growing business. The central data engineering team plays a mission-critical role by managing master data, transaction transparency, and regulatory compliance for agencies like BAFIN, ESMA, and FINMA, serving customers across Europe. This effort supports the company’s growth trajectory from managing 350,000 instruments in 2010 to a projected 2.6 million by 2025.

Customer Overview

Our customer faced several operational and technical hurdles that necessitated a fundamental IT transformation, including:

  • Market Volatility and Data Explosion
    Fast-paced market changes necessitate processing 50,000 new and de-listed instruments daily, with up to 600-per-second price updates on a single product. Increasing data volumes strained existing on-premises systems.
  • Imminent Data Center Exit
    A tactical lift-and-shift was required to quickly exit the legacy data center while accommodating complex legacy application needs.
  • Regulatory Compliance and Digital Sovereignty
    The customer required a robust, compliant infrastructure to meet stringent European regulations and ensure operational confidence for financial data.
  • Technical Debt and Scalability
    Legacy systems with growing operational costs and scalability limitations prevented our customers from responding efficiently.

Challenges

Apps Associates, leveraging AWS cloud services, enabled our customers to transition from on-premises systems to a scalable, secure, and cost-efficient IT framework. The key transformation components included:

Database Modernization
  • Oracle Workloads to AWS RDS
    Using Oracle Data Guard and X-TTS techniques, a complex 63TB Oracle database was migrated to AWS RDS, achieving minimal downtime and up to 4x improved database performance.
  • PostgreSQL Migration
    PostgreSQL databases were restructured across multi-AZ AWS RDS deployments, ensuring high availability and long-term disaster recovery resilience.
Regulatory and Security Enhancements
  • Redesigned architecture ensured regulatory compliance with confidence, enabling rapid disaster recovery tests in minutes instead of days, fully automated.
Application Re-platforming
  • Core Applications Hosting on AWS EC2
    The customer migrated mission-critical applications like Informatica, MicroStrategy, and WebMethods to AWS EC2 instances for better reliability and scalability.
  • Custom SDV Client Transition to Amazon AppStream
    This secure, remote desktop solution provided employees with seamless anytime-anywhere access to key tools.
Performance and Scalability Gains
  • Upgraded tools like Oracle Databases, Informatica ETL, and AWS Landing Zone for better security, agility, and efficiency.

Solution

Apps Associates, leveraging AWS cloud services, enabled our customers to transition from on-premises systems to a scalable, secure, and cost-efficient IT framework. The key transformation components included:

Enhanced Resilience and Scalability

AWS’s global infrastructure improved its ability to manage sudden business demands, providing stable platform operations with uninterrupted failovers.

  • Failover testing, which once took days, now completed in minutes through automation.
  • Multi-AZ PostgreSQL deployments power high availability and quick disaster recovery.
Digital Sovereignty and Compliance

Our customer confidently navigates regulations while leveraging AWS for its mission-critical application infrastructure. Disaster recovery tests validated readiness to maintain security and auditability under BAFIN, ESMA, and FINMA guidelines.

Agility and Performance Boosts

AWS’s capabilities allowed them to execute faster analytics and optimize application performance to align with volatile financial market demands.

  • Database performance improved by 2x–4x, significantly reducing query times.
  • The lift-and-shift migration expedited time-to-value, enabling faster rollouts for offerings.
Reduction in Technical Debt

Moving away from hardware-dependent, costly legacy systems eliminated frequent upgrades and maintenance cycles. AWS managed services decreased IT operating costs by approximately 30%.

Benefits Achieved

AWS provided its customer with increased visibility into its core applications, enabling better planning, faster issue resolution, and optimized performance. By leveraging AWS’s partner ecosystem, they gained access to experts like Apps Associates, who brought specialized cloud and industry vertical knowledge.

Customer Impact

“Working with Apps Associates was super smooth. They didn’t shy away from issues—no matter the time of day.”

“An intended failover in production can now be automated and completed in just minutes. On-premises, this would have taken several days.”

Customer Testimonials

Through a strategic partnership with Apps Associates and AWS, the customer modernized its IT infrastructure, reducing technical debt and achieving exceptional availability, scalability, and compliance. This transformation enabled our customer to meet market demands, handle growing volumes of financial data, and maintain its position as a trusted and forward-thinking leader in the European stock exchange sector. This case serves as proof of Apps Associates’ expertise with AWS in delivering value-driven cloud migration solutions tailored for complex and regulated environments.

Summary

About Apps Associates

Apps Associates is a premier enterprise applications and technology advisor, counseling and executing across every stage of the enterprise transformation journey—not just the destination. For more than two decades, Apps Associates has closely collaborated with decision makers across nearly every industry, offering end-to-end integration, modernization, and cloud migration services. By helping to break down the silos within today’s most complex business challenges, Apps Associates is unlocking solutions and efficiencies that scale into future opportunities. Learn more at appsassociates.com or follow on LinkedIn.

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