Grid computing for financial institutionsLondon 11 November 2002 Grid computing is strong in scientific and engineering markets. This originates from the time when supercomputing and metacomputing were focusing on that area. Financial applications, although many of them are also parallel in nature, were not addressed that much because of different operating systems and different programming languages used. With clusters of Linux computers that all has changed. And now, a company like Datasynapse starts with its non-stop distributed software called LiveCluster in the financial market, targeting banks as its first customers. With a first sales to Abbey National Treasury Services plc, part of the Abbey National Group - the sixth largest banking group in the UK, US-based Datasynapse has now also entered the European market.
Abbey National Treasury Services will use LiveCluster to manage a distributed computing platform to run risk management and reporting applications in the bank's financial products division. According to the bank it was important that LiveCluster supports both existing and next generation applications and that it can be easily integrated with their current system environment.
LiveCluster is a distributed computing manager that works with applications that can be broken up in parallelised tasks. LiveCluster distributes them on the processors available. On the processors runs a LiveCluster tool that also reports the status of the processor back, i.e. what the current load and availability is for instance.
LiveCluster differs from queue-based load management systems in that it is designed as a distributed task manager.
Important for banks, but also in other applications, is the built-in fault-tolerance. When a processor fails, the task is resubmitted. LiveCluster does the book keeping. LiveCluster can handle Linux, Unix, and Windows clusters and applications in several programming languages.
DataSynapse is positioning itself also as a Grid Software company. DataSynapse is working with IBM Global Services and Intel to deliver a single integrated solution. The company is an active participant in the Global Grid Forum and expects to support the Globus Toolkit version 3.0 in mid-2003 and other GGF-endorsed OGSA specifications.
The London office of DataSynapse has been opened in April. The office, led by Willy Ross, Managing Director, DataSynapse - EMEA, will first focus on targeting the larger banks and financial institutions in Europe. For other markets, discussions on assigning resellers are taking place.
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