Customer Stories / Financial Services
2024
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Bloomberg Hosts New Virtual Data Room for Trialing Data Using AWS
Learn how Bloomberg streamlined data exploration and reduced time to value using Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser for its VDR.
Accelerated
and simplified data evaluation to speed up purchase decisions
Fully hosted
its solution on AWS requiring no client-side software
Prepopulated
Jupyter notebooks with historical data ready for robust analysis
Provided
customers with a protected environment
Overview
Since 1981, Bloomberg has empowered investors in global capital markets with the information they need to make informed decisions and drive growth. Through its Enterprise Data business, the company provides access to high-quality data using Data License content. This license is consistent with the data on the Bloomberg Terminal to support a broad range of use cases at scale across enterprises.
Choosing the optimal data for enterprise-wide investment and operational workflows can be a significant decision for almost any firm. Before making a purchase decision, customers need to ensure that the data meets their business requirements. This can lead to long decision cycles because customers take time to obtain temporary access and evaluate the quality, coverage, and shape of a typically large dataset before making an informed purchase decision.
To streamline this process, Bloomberg developed a Virtual Data Room (VDR) and turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host this innovative solution. Bloomberg’s VDR provides customers with an environment where clients can immediately interact with Bloomberg’s extensive catalog of data before they subscribe, without the risk of data exfiltration. The VDR not only enhances the customer experience but also significantly reduces the time from data discovery to business value.
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Opportunity | Accelerating Evaluation of Bloomberg Enterprise Data from Months to Days
Bloomberg provides high-quality data that drives idea generation, enterprise-wide collaboration, and efficient trading and investment workflows across global capital markets. “Customers use our data to address a vast array of business needs,” says Brian Doherty, global head of Data License at Bloomberg. “We provide a lot of content, and we’re constantly seeing new use cases for that content. Every day, we publish over 100 billion data points spanning company data, sustainability data, pricing, reference, investment research, regulatory data, and more.”
Bloomberg’s VDR was designed to help clients quickly discover which of this content perfectly fits their use cases. Hosted on AWS, the solution accelerates the evaluation cycle without compromising data protection. Using Python-based Jupyter notebooks, Bloomberg’s VDR empowers customers to interact with actual production data while reviewing schemas, coverage, completeness, metadata, and other properties of Bloomberg’s bulk datasets. In addition to common Python libraries, clients can edit the notebooks to answer specific questions such as how they can load the data or how easy it is to use a dataset for their specific use cases.
Bloomberg’s VDR facilitates interaction with Bloomberg’s comprehensive catalog of data and historical data without the need to install software, download files, or onboard files. Firms get immediate access to structured data in an environment that they are comfortable working in. With minimal effort, they can gain the insights they need to be confident in their data purchasing decisions—and ultimately get to production quickly. They can evaluate this data in days instead of months.
“Using AWS services, we can provide our customers with the ability to explore the data they need in the environment they want with minimal friction and high levels of security and availability,” says Doherty.
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Using Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser for our newly launched VDR, we don’t need to get the data to the customer. They can come get it themselves.”
Brian Doherty
Global Head of Data License, Enterprise Data, Bloomberg
Solution | Facilitating Seamless Access to Bloomberg’s Virtual Data Room Using Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser
Bloomberg used Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser—a fully managed, remote enterprise browser—to provide customers with a protected, self-service environment where they can securely access and explore datasets in Bloomberg’s VDR. The VDR is readily available for customers by accessing their Data License content at data.bloomberg.com or by entering {DATA <GO>} on the Bloomberg Terminal. After logging in to the intuitive online data catalog, customers can begin testing Bloomberg’s bulk datasets.
“Using WorkSpaces Secure Browser for our newly launched VDR, we don’t need to get the data to the customer. They can come get it themselves,” says Doherty. “The data stays in the hosted environment, and the customer can come in and interact with it. It’s a very streamlined process.”
The VDR engine is built on a combination of AWS services, which work together to provide a seamless self-service experience. For example, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), an object storage service, is used to store enterprise datasets. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)—which offers broad and deep compute infrastructure—provides the compute power necessary to run the hosted Python environment. WorkSpaces Secure Browser acts as the secure access point for customers, so data remains protected within Bloomberg’s environment under the AWS Shared Responsibility Model. Users can access WorkSpaces Secure Browser from their existing devices, without having to download or install any client software or use VPN connections.
“We wanted a solution that did not require the customer to install anything to avoid major security and compliance challenges,” says Doherty. “WorkSpaces Secure Browser is fully hosted and secured on AWS, and the systems are clearly separated and delineated. These were key factors in our decisions to host the VDR on AWS.”
Outcome | Unlocking Opportunities Quickly with Bloomberg Data
The successful launch of the VDR has helped clients tangibly test out and ascertain how Bloomberg’s bulk datasets offer differentiated quality. Now, they can save significant time when discovering and actioning the Bloomberg data they need to streamline operations and discover new investment opportunities.
“More customers are moving forward with their purchases drawing on the experience that they had in the VDR,” says Doherty. “We’ve been very happy with the performance so far, and we’re excited to add more capabilities in the future.”
About Bloomberg
Bloomberg provides data and software solutions to drive idea generation, enterprise-wide collaboration, and efficient trading and investment workflows across global capital markets.
AWS Services Used
Amazon S3
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service offering industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance.
Amazon WorkSpaces Secure Browser
WorkSpaces Secure Browser provides a protected environment for users to access private websites, software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, and the public internet.
Amazon EC2
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) offers the broadest and deepest compute platform, with over 750 instances and choice of the latest processor, storage, networking, operating system, and purchase model to help you best match the needs of your workload.
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