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Stratus ftServer system powers Malaysia's first online money brokering service

In recent years, the financial services industry in Malaysia has begun tapping the Internet's potential. The banking, stockbrokering and insurance sectors have started to embrace e-business strategies with the support of the Central Bank (Bank Negara Malaysia).

The potential of online business has not been lost on the local money market, which is also slowly moving in this direction. For almost 50 years, local money brokers have been conducting business in the traditional way - brokering deals ranging from US$5 million to US$100 million via the telephone switchboard system ."Our word is our bond" was the foundation that underpinned the business of money brokers who serviced the wholesale interbank market.

Today, this trusted way of doing business is undergoing a profound change. Four of Malaysia's eight licensed foreign exchange brokers have set up a consortium to facilitate online brokering. The Platinum eTrader system developed by Global Virtual Brokers Sdn Bhd went live in August 2004.

"The initiative to form Global Virtual Brokers was aimed at taking their money brokering business one step ahead - going virtual and taking their business online," said Mustafa Kamal Abdullah, managing director of Global Virtual Brokers.

Platinum eTrader allows the participating brokers to log on to the system to place, buy, and sell orders, as well as conduct negotiations on rates, contract amounts, and terms through a real-time Internet platform. "The electronic system that we
have developed is very close to the culture of trading in the market," said Mustafa, who started developing the system in 1999 .

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Search for Fail-Safe Solution

The mission-critical nature of online trading means the Platinum eTrader system "cannot go down even for a second," Mustafa said. "That means deals will be left hanging; there will be uncertainty, and business will be disrupted. We can't afford to be exposed to that kind of risk, especially when the deals run into millions."

"Our biggest worry was not the software, but the hardware. For example, if a network card fails, the whole market will be up in arms!" he added.

Global Virtual Brokers realized it needed a fail-safe IT infrastructure for its Platinum eTrader solution. After a fairly lengthy search and having evaluated several cluster and fault-tolerant solutions, it selected the ftServer^® W Series 3300 system from Stratus Technologies.

Running the Microsoft^® Windows^® Server 2003 operating system, the Intel^®-based ftServer W Series 3300 system is built on fault-tolerant technology and meets the company's continuous availability demands at a reasonable cost. Because the system is easy to configure and deploy, the installation process was relatively problem free. "The application was installed without hassles and the system was up and running within a day," Mustafa said.

The company considered a cluster-based solution, but subsequently rejected it because of several limitations. "For our mission-critical application, a fault-tolerant system was the only option that could meet our requirements for continuous availability," added Mustafa.

"Managing a cluster is a big headache. When something goes wrong you have to make sure replication is perfect, and the system needs to be rebooted. We would also need to write additional software specific to the cluster-based solution. " Mustafa explained. "Fortunately, Stratus server solutions eliminate the complexities of cluster deployment and its ongoing maintenance headaches."

With the W Series 3300 system, there is no need for failover scripting, repeated test procedures, or any additional work required to make applications cluster-aware. Instead, Stratus servers automatically provide zero failover time and critical data protection for both memory and disk.

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High Availability at Reasonable Cost

The high cost of continuous availability systems meant that this technology was once the preserve of large corporations with huge IT budgets. For many small- and medium-sized companies, such as Global Virtual Brokers, it seemed like a bridge too far to cross.

Although Global Virtual Brokers wanted a fault-tolerant system, it was worried about the hefty investments required to implement such a system. "Some fault-tolerant solutions cost as much as US$1 million, and we weren't sure if the consortium partners were willing to invest so much. The project was in danger of being aborted if we could not get the right technology at an affordable cost," Mustafa said.

Fortunately, Stratus Technologies was able to allay Mustafa's apprehension. "The cost of Stratus' W Series 3300 system was significantly less than the cost of high-end fault-tolerant systems from other vendors. That eliminated our worry about
the high cost of the technology," he said.

Stratus was first to introduce a family of Intel processor-based, fault-tolerant servers for Windows 2000 computing. The use of industry-standard components enabled Stratus to shatter price barriers for their Continuous Processing^® technology, without compromising performance or reliability. This fault-tolerant W Series server has been a boon to companies like Global Virtual Brokers, which use mission-critical applications developed on the Windows platform. Mustafa said, "Compared to a platform like UNIX^®, the total cost of ownership under Windows is considerably lower in terms of software, support, and maintenance costs."

Mustafa anticipates that the system will handle at least 10 per cent of the estimated 2000 contracts traded daily in the Kuala Lumpur money market. And he expects the volumes traded under Platinum eTrader to increase significantly in the coming years. The company also has plans to expand its business overseas.

This does not worry Global Virtual Brokers. The Stratus ftServer W Series product line also includes the powerful W Series 5600 system and enterprise-class 6600 system that can take care of any future computing needs.

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