Welcome to the second edition of Intelligence in Finance. In the last issue, we looked into trading and the low latency arms race. This time we are focusing on data and the manageability of system infrastructures, highlighting how the latest technologies are bringing major advantages to the management of server and desktop real estate.

Gary Thall Financial Services Director US Intel

The past months have seen major leaps in technology performance and power-thermal reduction, and we are finding that the financial services industry is hungry to harness the new speed paradigm. Frequent requests for benchmarks and engineering to take advantage of quad- and multi-core is evidence of the growing trend to fine-tune every possible element under the traditional application hood in search of acceleration from the underlying infrastructure platform. Last month, we launched our Low Latency Lab to provide a facility for financial institutions to do just this.

Behind this performance battle lies a data challenge that rests not only with data volumes, handling, maintenance, and storage, but also with the emergence of new interactions between producers of data and consumers of information. At Intel, we consider this a positive step toward an overhaul of financial services technologies, systems, and services. It’s time to reengineer the data and analytics infrastructure to manage the data mountain effectively and reduce risk exposure.

Intel has also been busy at events on both sides of the Atlantic, including Linux on Wall Street, closed technology roundtables, and our very own fasterTRADING briefing in London. New York roundtable participants challenged Intel to increase our product investment to drive leading-edge performance from the infrastructure, while London participants debated whether new virtualization technologies could be applied to the front office without compromising speed.

At fasterTRADING in London, our four guest speakers led discussions around optimized trading. These ranged from the skills required for the next generation of front-office professionals to the role of proximity, application acceleration, and the expected changing market landscape post-MiFID.

I hope you enjoy Intelligence in Finance. If you have any suggestions for coverage or want us to probe and report on specific topics, please let us know at intelfs@metia.com.

Filed under: Issue 2 - Summer 07