Telerate Deploys Frame-Relay Network As Comms Backbone

Dow Jones Telerate is deploying a frame relay-based wide area network to serve as the communications backbone for its data centers worldwide. The new network is also meant to serve as a platform for the vendor's planned risk management system, and could deliver data to some customer sites.

According to a Telerate official, the vendor began rolling out its new network for roughly "17 to 19 primary data centers" at the beginning of this year. The official, who declines to comment about when Telerate expects to finish the rollout of the network, says data center sites at which the frame relay architecture is being installed in North America include New York, Toronto, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Overseas, the official says, Telerate is rolling out the network in support of data centers in Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, London, Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Zurich, among other places.

The official says the new network is designed to cut the vendor's communications and data delivery costs, as well as to provide improved delivery and greater flexibility. The frame relay backbone will be replacing a mix of older networking technologies Telerate currently uses for data center communications. The official says Telerate's existing architecture is comprised of an x.25 network, which carries the vendor's "point to point traffic"; a Time Division Multiplexer (TDM) network, which is used for quote delivery; and at least one "broadcast network," which is used for delivering Telerate's ticker services.

The frame-relay net is being driven by WAN switching equipment supplied by Netrix Corp. Telerate plans to gradually install the network communications manufacturer's Integrated Switching System (ISS) Series 10 WAN switches at its data centers across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Most importantly, the official says, the frame relay architecture is superior to the x.25 network, which currently carries a large bulk of Telerate's data traffic. The official says that the new network allows for "a mixture of the data types" that gives users all the benefits that an x.25 network gives them, except at a higher speed and with greater flexibility. "We can embed [both] point to point services and broadcast services [in the frame relay network]. X.25 was not set up for that," the official says.

Another advantage that frame relay has over x.25, the official says, is its ability to serve as the delivery network for Telerate's quotes. What's more, the official says, frame relay's routing capabilities make it superior to Telerate's incumbent quote delivery network. "This network allows much greater capability in rerouting around a problem," the official says. "[Frame Relay] has alternative pathing. So if cables, circuits or satellites go out, we can, without much trouble, reroute. It's a star rather than a web -- that's the big difference."

The official, who describes the Netrix-driven frame relay architecture as "Telerate's basic financial network," says the network will also serve as the data delivery network for a range of Telerate products -- including the vendor's "full page service and quotation service" and, eventually, the next-generation Telerate Feed (IMD, July 31).

The first Telerate service that will be delivered via frame relay is the vendor's new risk management platform -- a system that is being marketed and supported by the vendor in conjunction with Softek Computer Services Inc., the Toronto-based firm that built Telerate's highly forgettable Quotelite equity service (IMD, Feb. 3, 1992). Telerate's partnership with Softek for the Quotelite service is just one of several times the vendors have teamed up on technology projects -- sometimes without much success (IMD, July 19, 1993). The risk management platform, which consists of features such as pricing services, transaction management and risk measurement, is now in beta tests at two sites, sources say.

In addition to those real-time products, the official says, the network will be the delivery mechanism for "inquire-response" services such as Dow Jones' News Retrieval product.

The official adds that deploying the frame relay network in support of other products "really hasn't reached the level of a plan yet" and says that Telerate's operations group still has to more thoroughly educate company personnel about the network. The official says the network group is still coming to grips with the intricacies of frame relay.

Before sketching the current blueprint for its new network, Telerate formed a committee to study requirements and available network resources. At about that time, Telerate had engaged as a consultant the technologist who originally designed the vendor's existing network architecture, Tony Sabitini. Sabitini, whom Telerate had let go years before, returned to the vendor to help those who followed in his wake to better understand the network he had put in place (IMD, Sept. 12, 1994).

To ease the process of migrating from the incumbent mix of networks to frame relay, Telerate selected Netrix as its router provider. One of the primary reasons Netrix came out on top at Telerate, a Netrix official says, is the ability of its equipment to "run multiple protocols, including x.25," while Telerate makes the jump to frame relay. Says this official: "It'll run their x.25 network ... and then allow them to migrate through software configurations to frame relay, on a port by port basis."

According to the Netrix official, Telerate began piloting the ISS Series 10 system in the fall of 1994. A few months later -- in February 1995 -- Telerate and Netrix officially announced an agreement.

The Telerate official, while declining to specify which other WAN equipment suppliers Telerate evaluated, concurs that the flexibility of Netrix's product played a key role in its victory. However, the official says that a few other factors also gave Netrix an edge.

"Not only were they flexible, but they had excellent integration of network control and monitoring built in [to their ISS Series 10 equipment]," he says. "That's something I know our operations group had been hankering at for years and years -- quicker, faster control of problem circuits anywhere in the world."

The Netrix-driven network will use the TCP/IP communications protocol to link Telerate's data centers around the world -- rendering it, effectively, a private Internet.

Telerate's regional data centers will also deploy Hewlett- Packard Co. servers to support links to customers for the Telerate Workstation, as well as the new Telerate Feed.

All of the aforementioned maneuvers fall in line with Telerate's strategy to migrate from its multiple delivery mechanisms to a single one (see diagram).

Telerate officials who headed up the frame relay project -- including Anthony Tracey, vice president of global operations -- either did not return calls seeking comment or decline to comment.