The New York Stock Exchange is to port key applications from Sun Servers to Linux, in a move hailed by IBM as a significant coup for the free operating system and its mainframe business.
The Securities Industry Automation Corporation, which is responsible for the Nyse and Amex computer systems, says it will transfer the application which reports buy and sell transaction to Wall Street brokers, from 180 Sun Sparc servers to an IBM eServer zSeries mainframe running Linux "virtual servers."
The application, called Artmail, currently reports between 15 million and 20 million transactions a day.
IBM says the deal is a major endorsement of its campaign to establish Linux as an industrial strength, mission-critical operating system. "It is no coincidence that as Linux matures and becomes more secure, the financial sector is beginning to adopt the platform for critical transactions and IT infrastructure," says Steve Solazzo, vice president, Linux, IBM.
In addition, electronic trading vendor Javelin Technologies, has developed FIXBox, a Linux-based, low cost trading solution incorporating the Financial Information Xchange (FIX) and IBM eServer systems. The solution, which runs on an IBM eServer xSeries 330 and Debian Linux, is able to link Javelin's 250 institutional and exchange customers with small-to-mid-sized fund managers and hedge funds who may not have the IT resources necessary to implement a cost effective electronic trading solution.
"It is significant that the financial services industry is realising the cost benefits of server consolidation on a mainframe running Linux," says Bill Claybrook, research director for Linux and Open Source Software, Aberdeen Group. "I expect to see more of these customers take advantage of Linux in the future."