Industrial Bank Of Japan Moves Closer To Global Rollout of Reuters' Triarch

The Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ) has deployed Reuters Triarch digital data distribution platform across its global network of trading centres, having negotiated a global licensing agreement with the vendor late last year.

IBJ began negotiating the global licence with Reuters late last year as the bank's London office moved forward with plans to install Triarch, replacing the Midas Kapiti International Citydesk data distribution platform it had been using for five years (Dealing With Technology, Nov. 29, 1996).

Standardizing its global trading operations on a single data distribution platform is part and parcel of a management initiative aimed at gaining better control, and making more efficient use of the bank's information and IT resources. In line with these objectives, IBJ recently reorganized its IT department, forming centralized technology development, implementation and cost control groups at its Tokyo headquarters.

Although it is a global licence, there will be exceptions to the new rule, such as IBJ Hong Kong. Staff there will continue to rely on the Dow Jones Platform from Dow Jones Markets to distribute real-time market data and news across its trading floor.

"To be sure, there are cost benefits [associated with the global Triarch licence], but maximizing functional utilization of our information resources holds even greater promise," explains Yasunori Homma, joint general manager of IBJ's information technology department. "By standardizing information delivery platforms across centres, we can accumulate and concentrate our technological know-how."

Separately, IBJ is planning to bring in-house Reuters' 3000 Series of information services at its Tokyo headquarters in what Reuters hopes will be a prelude to IBJ deciding to deploy the 3000 Series on a wider basis.

At the time of negotiations last year, Triarch was already the data distribution platform of choice at IBJ's Tokyo headquarters, as well as on trading floors at its Los Angeles, Paris and Singapore offices, say bank and vendor officials.

According to the global licensing agreement, IBJ and Reuters project staff have since installed Triarch at IBJ's Frankfurt, Luxembourg, New York, Melbourne and Sydney trading centres.

IBJ Tokyo currently uses the 16-bit version of Reuters' PTW (Personal Trader Workstation) display software. These can be upgraded whenever required, however, say Reuters' officials, and will need to be as IBJ proceeds to install the vendor's 3000 Series information services. The 3000 Series uses the so-called Tablet application as a display mechanism.

As a result of negotiating the global license, IBJ has gained a certain discount, and IBJ will be able to make full use of information provided by Reuters and other sources, explains a Reuters Japan spokesperson. Reuters, on the other hand, has "increased stable user numbers world-wide and is building a long-term relationship with one of the largest Japanese banks," says the source.

Prior to standardizing on Triarch and centralizing management of its information services in Tokyo, individual IBJ offices had the leeway to choose their own digital data distribution platforms and information services. Although IT considerations were always part of making such decisions, traders' demands for new services typically drove these initiatives, IBJ's Homma relates.

However, with the amount and cost of information being distributed across IBJ's trading rooms escalat ing, management decided to take action, crafting a plan that has resulted in IBJ centralizing development and support of its data delivery platforms and infor mation services within new, Tokyo-based technology development, implementation and cost control groups.

"Such decisions have significant IT implications. When this process isn't properly and centrally controlled, the result is chaos," Homma says. "We've learned a lot of lessons in the past, and we believe this is a solution for it. Management realized we've got to control costs and maximize the value of our information resources on a global basis."

Centralizing data delivery and information services decisions in Tokyo will also improve IBJ's application development efforts and enable the bank to make more efficient and flexible use of its IT personnel, Homma says.

"In the past, the systems area didn't treat inform ation delivery systems and services as a product to support," Homma says. With the formation of the new technology and cost control groups, data sourcing, delivery and management will now be an integral part of IBJ's overall systems planning and development efforts. "The status of systems development has been completely changed," he says.

Running Triarch in almost all its trading rooms should make this easier for IBJ's developers. They can now develop one market data interface as part of their application development efforts, and save significantly in time and costs, Homma notes.

The ability to better manage access rights and report on information usage should go a long way in helping IBJ control its data delivery and information services costs. Reuters' ability to provide the systems administration tools required in doing so was a key factor in the bank's decision to deploy Triarch globally.

IBJ is installing Reuters' Data Access Control System (DACS) at its Triarch sites. DACS provides Triarch users with an integrated set of utilities to grant permission, control and report on access to all information services and applications compatible with the vendor's Source Sink Library (SSL).

DACS is built around a Unix-based Sybase RDBMS and a Motif or X-Windows spreadsheet-based user interface. Systems administrators use a DACS Control Station to access the system, or they can access it remotely from PCs via X-Windows.

Permissioning data is entered into the database during the configuration of the system, and user information and application access rights are assigned. Reuters has built automated data collection and analysis features into DACS, a so-called "Learning Mode" that facilitates the configuration process by gathering, organizing and analyzing users' data and application accesses.

Once set up, the permissioning data is distributed across a Triarch or SSL network to a group of DACS Servers, which manage the operational aspects of permission checking. The network of DACS processes reside on existing Triarch and SSL nodes, eliminating the need for extra hardware.

These processes are duplicated on secondary, back-up servers, providing redundancy by ensuring that users continue to have access to their data, positions and applications in the event a primary server fails, according to Reuters technical documentation.

Using DACS' reporting features, systems administrators are able to produce data access reports by user, by user group and by position. DACS can also produce reports for information providers that can be printed out in a format acceptable for supporting data access declarations and billing, according to the Reuters' documents.