Intel fasterFS

fasterSTREET - RISK DATA and ANALYTICS - Dec. 8 in New York City

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:19:04 +0000

Intel announces a new event to be held in New York City on Dec. 8: fasterSTREET - RISK DATA and ANALYTICS - 101 Park Ave, New York City. Risk management is the pivotal function in financial services. Never has it been more topical than in the current issues facing the market and the pressures mount to address the key features of achieving effective management of risk – protecting the balance sheet, client and market interests.

> Learn more about the event here

> Register to attend the event here

Case Study: Virtualization on Servers with Intel Xeon Processors Helps DDS Dresdner Direktservice GmbH Achieve Better Performance at Lower Cost

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:00:52 +0000

DDS Dresdner Direktservice GmbH helps Dresdner Bank and other Allianz Group business units by offering customer sales support and services. Continuous growth pushed some DDS servers to their capacity limits, and maintenance contracts for 39 servers expired. DDS decided to gradually replace its hardware and to deploy virtualization. The decision was prompted by successful trials on two servers with multi-core Intel® Xeon® processors.

Find out how virtualization with servers based on multi-core Intel Xeon processors has helped DDS to reduce IT costs and protect its investments.

Download the DDS Dresdner Direktservice Case Study

Case Study: Turkiye IS Bankasi Uses Virtulization by Deploying Intel Xeon Processor 5300 Series, Reduces Power and Energy Usage

Intel fasterFS — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:00:41 +0000

Türkiye IS Bankasi utilizes the powerful performance of Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series to embrace a Predictive Enterprise strategy.

The new project aimed to establish virtual servers to replace low performance end-of-life hardware. It intended to assess whether complex and critical systems with high throughputs and transaction rates could easily be deployed and managed. To establish a foundation for the new virtualization project it began exploring the benefits of the Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series.

Read about Türkiye IS Bankasi’s successes in reducing power and energy consumption by downloading the case study below.

Download the Türkiye Is Bankasi Case Study

Case Study: Intel Works with The Bank of New York Mellon on Testing Network Latency with Enterprise Applications

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:00:17 +0000

On July 1, 2007, The Bank of New York Company, Inc., and Mellon Financial Corporation completed their merger to form The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, creating a global financial services company focused on helping clients manage and move their financial assets, operating in 37 countries and serving more than 100 markets.

The company is committed to using the latest technology to improve the efficiency of its businesses. It uses hundreds of enterprise applications for everything from asset management and asset servicing to internal communications. To protect its vital data and ensure continued operation of applications, the company decided to migrate its primary data center to a remote location. The company’s IT group asked Intel® Solution Services to help test application latency so it could ensure that the distance to the remote data center would not affect application performance.

Find out how Intel helped The Bank of New York Mellon successfully implement their remote data center.

Download the The Bank of New York Mellon Case Study

RMDS 6.0 Benchmarked on Sun Blade X6250 Server Module

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:48:33 +0000

Sun Microsystems has benchmarked Thomson Reuters RMDS 6.0 on a Sun Blade X6250 Server Module powered by two-socket 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5450 processors (total 8 cores) system. After applying best tuning practices for the Solaris/Intel platform, the benchmark achieved one of the best latency numbers for RMDS on 1GbE infrastructure.

Top line latency and throughput is as follows (See below for the full benchmark results):

RMDS Blades Latency Numbers - All 1 Gigabit Ethernet:

Message Rate Updates/sec	Mean Latency in msecon X6250 Blade Server with 3.0GHz Intel Xeon Quad-Core / Solaris 10 x64	Mean Latency in msecon HP BL460c Blades Server with 3.0GHz Intel Xeon Dual-Core / Linux 4.4 32-bit	Difference on X6250
100,000 updates/sec	0.659 msec	0.626 msec	-5.0%
150,000 updates/sec	0.701 msec	0.753 msec	+7.0%
200,000 updates/sec	0.752 msec	0.896 msec	+6.0%
250,000 updates/sec	0.771 msec	1.029 msec	+25.0%
300,000 updates/sec	0.840 msec	1.117 msec	+25.0%
350,000 update/sec	0.867 msec	1.209 msec	+28.0%
400,000 updates/sec	0.892 msec	n/a	n/a
450,000 updates/sec	0.961 msec	n/a	n/a
500,000 updates/sec	1.015 msec	n/a	n/a
550,000 updates/sec	1.060 msec	n/a	n/a
600,000 updates/sec	1.197 msec	n/a	n/a
650,000 updates/sec	1.439 msec	n/a	n/a
700,000 updates/sec	1.356 msec	n/a	n/a

RMDS Blades Throughput Numbers - All 1 Gigabit Ethernet:

RMDS Component/Configuration	Solaris 10 x64on X6250 Blade Server with 3.0GHz Intel Xeon Quad-Core (messages/sec)	Linux 4.4 32-bit on HP BL460c Blades Server with 3.0GHz Intel Xeon Dual-Core (messages/sec)
P2PS LAN - Fanout, Cache Disabled, RRCP	2,474,500 updates/sec	n/a
P2PS LAN - Fanout, Cache Disabled, RV	2,434,860 updates/sec	n/a
Source Dist - Cache Disabled, RRCP	965,000 updates/sec	n/a
Source Dist - Cache Disabled, RV	960,000 updates/sec	n/a
P2PS LAN, No-Fanout, Cache Disabled, RRCP	853,000 updates/sec	n/a
P2PS LAN, No-Fanout, Cache Disabled, RV	812,000 updates/sec	n/a
P2PS POP, Fanout, Cache Disabled	2,282,600 updates/sec	n/a
P2PS POP, No-Fanout, Cache Disabled	488,000 updates/sec	n/a

Read the full results of the benchmark tests here

Developer Survey Shows Performance Requirements Usher In the Multi-Core Era

Intel fasterFS — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:26:49 +0000

Rogue Wave Software, a leading provider of enterprise class C++ components and infrastructure, has announced results of a global survey of nearly 700 software developers and IT architects to gauge their organizations’ attitudes towards and understand their plans to begin migrating legacy applications to multi-core hardware.

As the enterprise IT sector hits performance thresholds with single-core servers, devising a resource-efficient strategy is paramount. The survey was designed to better understand the challenges they are facing in this process and the strategies they are employing to address those issues. The results reveal that respondents believe the shift to multi-core is imminent, several of them noting that achieving high performance cost efficiently was a critical success factor and there are varying strategies in addressing the multi-core dilemma.

Read the results of the survey here.

Relatedly, Rogue Wave recently conducted a benchmark on Intel® Xeon® processor 7400 series (formerly Dunnington), related to leveraging multi-core solutions for high performance SOA applications. Read the results of that benchmark here.

Case Study: First American Corporation Chooses Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processors to Accelerate Application Deployment

Intel fasterFS — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:00:57 +0000

The First American Corporation provides the information consumers and businesses need to make decisions about important economic transactions, from buying a house to securities investment. Generating that information requires specialized software, and First American’s in-house software development group frequently introduces new applications designed to sharpen the analytical capabilities of over 200 different business units within the enterprise.

As the pace of software development increased, First American’s IT staff was also challenged with increasing demand for new servers. “Ordering and deploying new hardware could take two weeks or more,” says Aaron Andrews, First American’s director of distributed systems. “We needed to speed up the process to meet the demands of our business units. But at the same time, we were looking for ways of driving down IT costs.”

Find out how First American accomplished their goals using Intel technology in the case study below.

Download the The First American Corporation Case Study

Case Study: Bohai Securities (China) Increases Transaction Loads and Speed by 2.5x Using Intel Xeon Processor Technology

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:00:20 +0000

With the successful deployment of systems based on Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, Bohai Securities has effectively buffered itself against increased business demands and laid the groundwork for the securities house to greatly expand its services further.

And as Bohai Securities continues to expand, it will continue to utilize servers running on Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor technology for the scalability and headroom to handle more transactions of increasing complexity, securing a bright financial future not only for itself but also for its customers.

Read about Bohai’s experience by downloading the case study below.

Download the Bohai Securities Case Study

Porting C and C++ Applications to Solaris/x86

Intel fasterFS — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:32:30 +0000

A recent article from the Sun Developer Network discusses porting C and C++ applications to Solaris, including from Linux/x86 to Solaris/x86 and from Solaris/SPARC to Solaris/x86.

Read the full article here.

Case Study: Bank NISP (Indonesia) Deploys Intel Multi-Core Xeon Processors and Increases Performance

Intel fasterFS — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:00:53 +0000

With the successful deployment of blade server systems based on Intel® CoreTM microarchitecture, Indonesia-based Bank NISP has effectively buffered itself against increased business demands and laid the groundwork for further service expansion, distinguishing itself from the competition.

Read how Bank NISP increased performance in the case study below.

Download the Bank NISP Case Study

Case Study: Banco Popular Reports 20% Drop in Deskside Visits and 10% Drop in Costs Using vPro

Intel fasterFS — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:00:07 +0000

Given the large number of desktops in the Banco Popular (Spain) fleet and the complexity of today’s IT environment, the time savings enabled by Intel® vPro™ technology’s remote power-up feature will have a significant impact.

By cutting the turnaround for PC reinstall and restart from 24 hours to just two, Banco Popular employees’ productivity will be significantly increased, and IT issues will no longer be a hindrance to service levels and business productivity.

Download the Banco Popular Case Study

faster2008 CITY of Innovation and Change - Dec. 15 in London

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:42:47 +0000

Intel announces a new Dec. 15 London event: faster2008 CITY of Innovation and Change. Institute of Electrical Engineers, 2 Savoy Place, London. This event is a festive look back on 2008 and a view forward based on contemporary developments in our industry and market.

Learn more about the event or register to attend here.

Case Study: Indian YES BANK Unwires Branches with Intel Technology

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:00:25 +0000

To gain a competitive advantage in the very competitive Indian Financial Services marketplace, YES BANK turned to Intel® Solution Services for technology guidance to help the bank develop and implement a secure, wireless and mobile solution, delivering a new branch banking experience in line with its “Bank of the Future” vision.

Using Intel® Centrino® mobile technology and Cisco access points, YES BANK achieved their objective to increase the level of customer service and value for both the bank and the customer. Get the full details by downloading the case study below.

Download the YES BANK Case Study

Intel Low Latency Video

Intel fasterFS — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:00:25 +0000

Watch a short video about Intel’s efforts in reducing latency in the financial services enterprise. Click the box below to watch now (3:09 minutes in length).

Watch & Listen Now: Improving Performance and Efficiency in Wall Street’s Data Centers

Intel fasterFS — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:00:32 +0000

Good to the Last Watt: Improving Performance and Efficiency in Wall Street’s Data Centers

A Wall Street & Technology Editorial Perspectives WebCast

Watch and listen (click below) to the webcast recently hosted by Wall Street & Technology on October 15, 2008. With Wall Street data centers straining to keep up with ever expanding capacity demands from all areas of the business, many firms are reaching capacity limits imposed by space and even available power - especially near metropolitan centers. As a result, firms are looking to decrease power consumption and consolidate older servers all while increasing data center capacity to meet the low latency needs of trading desks and the computational needs of risk managers who run complex models and algorithms.

Join Scott Ross, Executive Director of High Performance Computing at UBS Investment Bank; Larry Tabb, founder of Tabb Group; Greg MacSweeney, editor-in-chief of Wall Street & Technology and Nigel Woodward, Worldwide Lead for FSI at Intel to hear how Wall Street firms are improving performance all while increasing capacity and efficiency in their data centers.

Turn up your speakers and click on the box below to watch now! (66:13 minutes in length)

Case Study: E.SUN Securities Investigates vPro for Security and Manageability

Intel fasterFS — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:00:07 +0000

Taiwan’s E.SUN Securities is no stranger to using information and communications technology (ICT) to further its financial services business. More than 50 percent of its financial transactions are now done electronically. The company relies very much on technology despite being spread across 13 locations and supporting over 300 staff, E.SUN Securities has only 15 ICT staff to support its entire operation.

As its operation and number of transactions grow, E.SUN Securities realized it needed to
find better ways to streamline its IT resource management for both operational and security
purposes and investigated Intel® vPro™ processor technology as a solution for their needs.

Download the E.SUN Securities Case Study

Wall Street & Technology - Intel Says New Server Chips Are Virtualization- and Environment-Friendly

Intel fasterFS — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:00:51 +0000

A recent article in Wall Street & Technology highlights Intel’s green credentials with the launch of its latest round of server chips which perform 50% better and use 10% less power than the previous generation of Caneland 7300 chips.

The article quotes Intel fasterFS’s Rick Jacobsen:

“This is great news for people who need to get a lot of work done in a complex environment and need to dramatically reduce that complexity,” says Rick Jacobsen, director financial services marketing, Intel Americas. “It’s a standard server with a dense form factor that can help you consolidate infrastructure while using the latest energy-efficient technology.”

Read the full article here: Intel Says New Server Chips Are Virtualization- and Environment-Friendly.

Case Study: Fuhwa Financial Deploys Intel vPro Technology to Enable Remote Management

Intel fasterFS — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:50:05 +0000

The remote PC management capabilities of Intel® vPro™ technology helps Fuhwa Financial Group attain its Predictive Enterprise vision, solving problems remotely even when PCs are powered down or the operating system (OS) is not functioning.

Previously, Fuhwa Financial Group’s IT team required desk side visits in order to resolve IT issues, and not all of the company’s branches are staffed with IT personnel.

However, the Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT) capabilities of Intel® vPro™ technology now covers most of the legwork for the company’s IT staff, saving costs in terms of travel expenses and man hours.

Download the Fuhwa Financial Group Case Study

Wall Street & Technology - Hard Drives That Keep Up With Quants

Intel fasterFS — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:44:55 +0000

A recent article in Wall Street & Technology profiles the new solid state drives recently launched by Intel. The high performance, low latency drives have no moving parts and hold up to 80 gigabytes of data. They’re also extremely efficient, using very little electricity.

The article gives a run down of the particulars, with a focus on how these drives will serve Wall Street quants–mathematicians who carry out quantitative analyses of companies, which involves computer simulations and vast amounts of data.

The article quotes several Intel personnel, including Intel fasterFS’s Rick Jacobsen:

“Quants use real-time data but they also use an increasing amount of historical data to run their models, so the ability to store data in a larger capacity with higher performance and lower power usage should be of great interest to them,” adds Rick Jacobsen, director financial services marketing, Intel Americas.

“The data centers on Wall Street are at full capacity, with electricity constraints they can’t put more servers in there, as much as they’d like to,” Jacobsen says. The solid state drives should enable them to do much more within existing footprints, he says.

Read the full article here: Hard Drives That Keep Up With Quants.

fasterRISK DATA and ANALYTICS - Intro

Intel fasterFS — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:20:58 +0000

Risk management is the pivotal function in financial services.

Never has it been more topical than in the current issues facing the market and the pressures mount to address the key features of achieving effective management of risk – protecting the balance sheet, client and market interests.

Data lies at the heart of the challenge – and its sheer scale. Scale in terms of the heterogenous sources of transaction and counterparty information across the firm, and depth of historical market data for scenario back testing.

Overnight used to be sufficient but the combination of regulation, business prudence and competitive pressure to optimise “safe – risk managed” trading is raising the bar.

Infrastructure technologies around processors, networks and hardware are innovating, and leading risk exponents are embracing these new architectures. The combination of components and possibilities for solutions needs exposure and debate.

fasterRISK DATA and ANALYTICS continued the tradition of this successful series by assembling a uniquely broad range of skills, experience and product capability to fully air the subject.

The fasterRISK DATA and ANALYTICS event was held in London, 7 October 2008.

fasterRISK DATA and ANALYTICS - Andrew Parry

Intel fasterFS — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:20:40 +0000

Introduction by Nigel Woodward, Global Director, Financial Services for Intel, and Keynote presentation by Andrew Perry, JP Morgan Exotics and Hybrids.