ABN Amro Builds Upon its Grid

LONDON-ABN Amro is building upon its initial deployment of grid computing software from DataSynapse for its Macro Exotics Trading division, and intends to grid-enable other complex transaction divisions, a bank official tells DWT.

ABN Amro is using DataSynapse's GridServer software to bolster the systems used by the firm's derivatives trading division, and to improve trading productivity and performance levels while letting the bank re-use existing servers and CPUs.

"We looked at grid computing technology when we were in the process of restructuring the code of our internal software," says Richard Buntin, IT relationship manager at ABN Amro, headquartered in Amsterdam. The bank uses an internally built application for pricing and batch reporting. Buntin declines to give more details about this application, including its name.

"We had a selection process in June 2005 and chose DataSynapse," Buntin says. "We started deploying DataSynapse in February 2006 to run components of our global application," he says. Buntin declines to identify the other contenders.

ABN Amro is in full production with the grid computing technology for 60 traders in its London-based complex derivatives business unit. "First, we [grid-enabled] the very expensive and complicated products," Buntin says. The Macro Exotics Trading division includes the trading of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives such as exotic interest rate options and long-dated FX hybrids.

The grid-enabled proprietary application is also used by ABN Amro traders around the globe. "We have more than 20 countries [remotely] using the grid," Buntin says.

ABN Amro first moved its end-of-day batch reporting to the grid, which is used by the bank for internal operations, compliance and downstream risk systems, according to DataSynapse. With processing times reduced, the bank began to increase its intra-day processing.

The bank is moving to expand the use of its grid infrastructure, and is slated to use DataSynapse GridServer for its credit derivatives and analytics business lines. "This project is already in flight right now," Buntin says. The project is slated to go into production next year, Buntin confirms.

These divisions will grid-enable their own dedicated hardware, according to Buntin, who could not provide more details as he is not in charge of this project. "[But] we will be managing the growth of the grid going forward," says Buntin, hinting at a shared use of the grids.

Moreover, the re-use of existing hardware resources is helping the bank to alleviate data center issues of power and cooling as well as the need to spend on new server hardware, according to the bank.

ABN Amro has now linked 600 servers, Buntin says. "We have a number of CPUs and blade servers," he says, while declining to provide an exact breakdown. "These units are located in data centers in the U.K.," he adds.

In the past, ABN Amro has favored servers from Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard (Trading Technology Week, April 19, 2004).

Olivier Laurent