Category Archives: Governance, Risk and Compliance
Informatica Ultra Messaging Enables Early SEF Movers
In a recent post: Informatica Ultra Messaging Software Supports Capital Markets Reforms, I discussed the technology implications of the OTC derivatives (swaps) market moving to electronic trading as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) in the US and the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) in Europe. One area where new technology infrastructure will be especially critical is in the creation and operation of “exchanges” for electronic swaps trading, similar to what is used for equities and other asset classes. In the language of the DFA, such exchange venues are called Swap Execution Facilities (SEFs) and are defined as “a facility, trading system or platform in which multiple participants have the ability to execute or trade swaps by accepting bids and offers made by other participants that are open to multiple participants in the facility or system, through any means of interstate commerce.” This of course includes capturing orders electronically, matching bids and offers, executing the trades, and providing connections to central clearing houses. And perhaps nowhere else in the new ecosystem is the expected growth in message volumes and associated need for new messaging middleware technology more evident than here. (more…)
Addressing the Big Data Backup Challenge with Database Archiving
In a recent InformationWeek blog, “Big Data A Big Backup Challenge”, George Crump aptly pointed out the problems of backing up big data and outlined some best practices that should be applied to address them, including:
- Identifying which data can be re-derived and therefore doesn’t need to be backed up
- Eliminating redundancy, file de-duplication, and applying data compression
- Using storage tiering and the combination of online disk and tapes to reduce storage cost and optimize performance (more…)
Hadoop Tuesday Update: Hadoop Paves the Way to Data Services
For too long, many enterprises have been attempting to sort through increasingly complex spaghetti architectures with point-to-point data integration. “They get to the point where when they want to introduce a new product or make a change, they have to touch 30 different systems,” says John Akred, data and platforms lead at Accenture Technology Labs. “That has real consequences in the marketplace for enterprises.”
John continued that Hadoop – an open-source software framework that enables applications to run across large arrays of nodes, accessing petabytes’ worth of data – will help organizations manage and scale up to the huge volumes of unstructured and semi-structured data now surging into organizations. I recently had the opportunity to join John, along with Julianna DeLua, Enterprise Solution Evangelist for Big Data from Informatica, for a discussion of Hadoop’s role in the emerging data as a platform paradigm. The session was the second session of the Hadoop Tuesdays Webinar series, sponsored by Informatica and Cloudera. (more…)
Ultra Messaging Efficiency For Better Agility and Scalability
Our first post in this series on Efficiency covered the high-level performance benefits of super-efficient messaging software, whether you measure for latency or throughput, since efficiency is the property of software that provides performance. “Ultra-low latency” is just another term for extremely fast, lean, efficient execution. For more, see the post: Ultra Messaging is Also High-Throughput, High-Availability, Lower-TCO Messaging.
Our next post covered 24×7 availability, reliability and lower TCO from this efficiency. Less hardware and fewer software processes to touch the data in transit between applications provides these benefits. For more, see the post Ultra Messaging: For 24×7 High Availability, Lower TCO, and Robust Reliability.
This post discusses how the same Ultra Messaging efficiency that provides performance, reliability, and lower TCO also provides great agility and near-linear scalability. And with today’s Big Data challenges, especially in the capital markets, efficiency is more prized than ever.
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Ultra Messaging: For 24×7 High Availability, Lower TCO, and Robust Reliability
Our first post in this series (Ultra Messaging Is Also High-Throughput, High-Availability, Lower-TCO Messaging) covered, from a very high level, the performance benefits of highly-efficient messaging software by stressing that efficiency is the property of software that provides performance, whether you measure a single piece of data for “ultra-low latency”, or a large batch of data for throughput. Either way, ultimately, it’s all about extremely fast, lean, efficient execution. The way you choose to measure that performance is up to you, and depends on your needs.
But extremely fast, lean, efficient execution has other benefits for the customer besides performance. For example, the same Ultra Messaging efficiency that provides very high performance also provides the foundation for many of the key features of enterprise-quality software, such as true 24×7 high availability, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and robust reliability. In the earlier post, we just touched on these topics, but here we will discuss them in a bit more detail.
Using Metadata To Manage Data Integration Change
Last week, a long-time Informatica customer told me about how he is managing change in his data integration environment on a truly massive scale. The story he told reminded me of someone doing a heart transplant on themself while running a marathon. … blindfolded.
- First, he is delivering several innovative new applications. One to improve customer service. Another, proactively monitors operational performance and suggests where the business needs to invest more to improve their capacity and service levels.
- Next, he is rolling out new systems that will collect customer sentiment analysis from social media sources (Big Data) and integrate that with ongoing campaigns and company planning. (more…)
Informatica Ultra Messaging Software Supports Capital Markets Reforms
As a leader in providing enterprise software to the capital markets industry, Informatica is well aware of the technological impact of current financial reforms on many segments of that industry. To help its customers fully understand this impact, Informatica commissioned a study by the TABB Group to investigate the ramifications of key new regulations in the United States and Europe on company IT infrastructures, with a specific focus on the OTC derivatives market (also known as the swaps market).
The findings of this study have been published in a TABB Group report entitled “Technology and Financial Reform: Data, Derivatives and Decision Making”, which highlights the critical requirement for a robust messaging architecture within the required new IT infrastructure. (more…)
Addressing Data Volume Growth With Better Efficiency
Friday August 5, 2011 set new records for trading volume around the world. According to this FT.com story: “The amount of data generated by the day’s trading in US futures and equities alone saw over 130m trades on Friday, generating 950 gigabytes of data, according to Nanex, a market data provider.” In London, “some exchanges with older technology could not cope”. And so Big Data strikes again.
But market data volume has been exploding for months, even years. This is just one more chapter in a long story, illustrating the types of problems that a business could encounter if they neglect their technical infrastructure in the face of data volume growth. (more…)
Effective Data Management Strategies for Solvency II Compliance
Recent announcements by the European Parliament to delay Solvency II implementation deadlines to 2014 are in the headlines as European insurers are seen as being ill-prepared for the minimum capital requirements that will be brought in by Solvency II regulation. A big reason for this stems from the data requirements and challenges companies face to ensure proper regulatory reporting and accurate risk calculations to guarantee compliance.
Complying with Solvency II has the same level of data challenges as did Basel II in the global banking industry as insurers set out to improve how they monitor and measure risk. Many are investing in risk scoring systems, data warehouses, business intelligence, and analytic applications to support their needs. Unfortunately, years of standalone business units, legacy underwriting, policy management, claims, and pricing systems, lack of proper technology to integrate, govern, and share critical data present critical business issues may further delay companies from meeting even these new deadlines. (more…)
Don’t Forget The Legacy Applications After Data Center Consolidation
As part of their cost cutting program, organizations are consolidating data centers and the applications within them. Federal and state agencies in the public sector are among those where IT consolidation and moving applications to the cloud are top priorities as part of an overall goal to increase efficiencies and eliminate costs. In other industries, many consolidations are also under way due to mergers and acquisitions and other cost cutting initiatives. As you plan or undergo a consolidation project, you also need to plan for the retirement of legacy, redundant applications that are left behind.
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