Real-time trading with lower capital investment
Company
Broker-Dealer A, a Solid Data customer, is a market
leader in securities brokerage and related financial
services for individuals and institutional investors. A
multi-billion dollar financial services firm, Broker-Dealer
A has aggressively deployed advanced information
technology to deliver innovative services that empower
its customers and generate revenues for the firm.
Application
Broker-Dealer A provides web-based access to securities
trading applications for in-house brokers and traders, as
well as on-line stock trading by retail customers. The
firm's infrastructure is designed to support very high
trading volumes, while providing a rich information
environment and powerful functionality.
The firm's front-end web servers are connected to its back-office mainframe through a middle tier of Unix application servers. These Unix servers use an IBM message queue (MQ Series) middleware application to access the mainframe database. The MQ Series message volumes are very high, and servers configured with traditional disk storage did not provide the required performance and scalability.
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Solution: Solid Data Solid-State Disks
By placing the message queue (MQ) logs on mirrored
Solid Data 900 Class solid-state disks, the firm was able to support its
peak message volumes and meet the required service
levels, without adding more MQ Series servers. By
providing zero-latency random access for key database
files, the solid-state disks not only improved I/O performance,
it also captured additional processor capacity that had
been previously lost to "I/O wait" conditions. Faster
I/O translates into a higher level of processor
availability to do useful work, which translates into
more messages per server.
Use of Solid Data disks provided an additional benefit by enabling the middle-tier AIX servers to support additional applications, providing richer functionality to the traders and investors. For example, the firm added DB2 database applications that provide real-time access to customer account information and transaction data without requiring mainframe access. These database applications also utilize the Solid Data logfiles, ensuring real-time performance and efficient file cache to provide zero-latency access to DB2 logfiles, ensuring real-time performance and efficient server utilization for these online trading applications.
Stock trading transactions translate directly into revenues for Broker-Dealer A, and data persistence, protection, and operational reliability are paramount for this application. Here, Solid Data disks offers speeds that approach main memory along with data persistence. In the event of unexpected power loss, data is retained in the solid-state disk by means of a redundant battery system, and under protracted outage, data is migrated to an internal hard disk. Upon power restoration, the data is restored to the solid-state disk automatically. Moreover, because data access is effected electronically rather than mechanically, system reliability is significantly enhanced.
Result
To leverage these gains in performance and efficiency,
Broker-Dealer A has deployed Solid Data solid-state disks on all
of its middle-tier AIX servers. According to the middleware
applications architect, Solid Data solid-state disks enables the
firm's MQ Series messaging servers to handle very high
trading volumes for its brokers, traders and customers. It
also enables the firm to deliver new functionality on the
same Unix servers, including DB2 applications that use the
Solid Data solid-state disks to maximize performance and scalability.
For additional information, contact us.
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Financial Services Firm Case Study PDF: 132 KB (broker_case.pdf) |
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