In using Informatica to transition trade clearing and account management operations from a legacy-based environment, the PHLX has reduced data integration development time and effort by at least 50 percent as it optimizes its business functionality by driving to a real-time environment.

"Informatica is enabling us to spend more time focusing on building our business capabilities and less time worrying about infrastructure details, which is the goal of any IT operation. You don't need a deep level of technical expertise to leverage the considerable advantages of this platform," said Douglas M. Schafer, Jr., first vice president, derivatives trading systems development and back office enterprise architecture development, Philadelphia Stock Exchange. "Developers are now more productive, we haven't had to hire expensive experts, and our data integration processes are higher performing. I also believe that the savings we're getting with Informatica will only accelerate as we move into even more complex applications."

The PHLX relied previously on hand-coded custom data integration routines, which were costly and time-consuming to write, manage and change. To streamline its transition off its legacy environment and to bridge between its existing and new architectures, the PHLX opted for a platform approach to data integration. After a thorough competitive evaluation, the nation's oldest stock exchange selected the Informatica platform for its ease of implementation, low learning curve, rapid codeless development, availability and high performance. Performance was a particular differentiator as the PHLX moves to a more real-time back-office environment.

Currently, the PHLX is using Informatica in two critical areas. Firstly, the exchange is using Informatica in data migration and data cleansing from legacy and other enterprise sources as PHLX implements its new real-time architecture. Firm accounts and trader databases from mainframe, Microsoft Access and Excel soources have already been migrated, with rules-based data cleansing as part of the migration process. The solution is currently being used to migrate mainframe-based trading symbol information.

Secondly, while the new architecture is being built out, the Informatica software is being used for two-way movement of data across operational platforms, some of which are still legacy-based. For example, leveraging PowerExchange's real-time mainframe access capabilities, the Informatica platform is used to provide up-to-date account information now managed in the new environment back to the original environment for certain types of processing, and then to access and reliably deliver the processed data back to the system of record in the new environment.

PowerExchange keeps many of the details of dealing with legacy systems transparent to the developer, and has enabled PHLX developers to work in formats they are familiar with for maximum productivity. This enables PHLX to minimize the impact or dependency on the legacy system staff for these efforts.

Looking ahead, the PHLX is planning to move to a data warehouse implementation for some of its surveillance systems with Informatica PowerCenter as part of that architecture. When implemented, data on an estimated 500 million to 1 billion quotes per day would be consolidated by PowerCenter and stored for seven years, so as to be available for analysis.

"The Philadelphia Stock Exchange's standardization on Informatica highlights many of the advantages of a platform approach to real-time data integration and migration, starting with ease of use and rapid, low-cost development," said Girish Pancha, executive vice president and general manager Enterprise Data Integration, Informatica. "But that's just the start. As with numerous Informatica customers, many of the systems that PowerCenter and PowerExchange touch at the PHLX are source-of-revenue systems, and the platform's high performance and proven reliability are of paramount importance to the exchange's day-to-day operations. This is just another indication of how well the Informatica platform is optimized for both analytical and operational data integration."