ABN Amro Builds New Singapore Trading Rooms

ABN Amro is building a 132-position trading room in Singapore, 106 positions of which will initially be ready for use come mid- to late April. The project is part of a broader bank initiative aimed at re-locating and consolidating all its Singapore-based business units on 15 floors of new office space at the under construction OCBC East office tower. Singapore now joins Amsterdam, Chicago and London as a global trading unit supporting the activities of ABN Amro's investment banking and global clients division.

ABN Amro is pumping over S$6 million ($4.5 million) into building the tenth floor trading room and an associated telecommunications and computer centre, which will be located a floor below.

According to Felix Muller, the IT manager in charge of the Singapore project, using IBM's so-called Advanced Connectivity System will go a long way to "future-proof" the new room, at least over the 10- to 12-year horizon the bank requires. The IBM structured cabling consists of running eight-pair of shielded foiled twisted pair (SFTP) to each position on the new floor.

Using new standards tested at the bank in Amsterdam means the new Singapore room will use its own as well as third-party products developed by British Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Northern Telecom and Tibco to create an integrated network carrying audio, video and data across the floor, as well as to other end-users.

For one, the IBM cabling will allow front-office staff to tap into the new Ethernet-based Virtual LAN (VLAN) the bank is working with IT comglomerate Singapore Technologies' Chartered Systems & Networks subsidiary to install.

On trader desktops, British Telecom's PV405 dealerboards will replace Hitachi models. The BT boards will be linked with the vendor's Type 73 digital voice network platform, Nice Systems' digital voice recording system, Northern Telecom's Meridian One PBX, and ADS's Spekabus digital hoot n' holler system. The latter enables global trading staff at financial hubs to co-ordinate their trading activities across regional markets and time zones.

Tibco's TIB digital data distribution system is currently being used to provide real-time market data and news across ABN's existing Singapore floor. The TIB will also be used for such when the bank's new trading room comes on-line. ABN originally installed the TIB across 50 positions last February, then extended it to an additional 16 positions during the course of 1996, Muller says.

A primarily Microsoft Windows NT-based trading room LAN linking desktop PCs and servers will also make the move to the new room. ABN is in the process of standardizing on NT for PC desktops at major trading centres across the globe. The bank recently decommissioned its remaining Novell file server, in favour of NT, Muller says. Unix-based servers that support the TIB, and some applications and databases remain.

Among other applications, the NT-based PCs will continue to use Tibco's Marketsheet software for data display on two to three video monitors that are being installed on new trading room desktops.

As is currently the case, the TIB will allow access to Dow Jones Telerate's TDPF, Bridge Information Systems' IDF, Reuters' Selectfeed Plus and S&P Comstock digital feeds. Traders also have either dedicated or shared-user access to stand-alone Bloomberg terminals. Those dedicated users will migrate to Open Bloomberg in the new room, according to Muller.

The bank is in the process of installing video cards on trading room PCs, Muller says. "We want to send video out to the NT workstations [via Hewlett Packard Unix-based servers], but we haven't selected the system just yet." Muller adds that Singapore is looking into business TV news offerings from Asia Business News, Bloomberg and Reuters.

The NT-based PCs used by the interest rate derivatives staff will run Hummingbird's eXceed X-Windows emulation software to access HP-based Infinity Financial Technology applications that don't currently run native under NT, Muller says.

Running the Infinity apps from back-end HP servers will allow Unix workstations to be removed from traders' desks, and will also enable traders to access HP and NT applications via one keyboard and mouse. "We're still having some technical problems with eXceed, however, but we'll hammer it out." Right now, eXceed handles all three video monitors as one logical screen, displaying the Infinity apps across all three, Muller explains.

IBM's structured cabling will provide each position in the new room with 16 network connection points, and plays a central role tying the trading room's network and systems infrastructure together. With network technology rapidly advancing, using SFTP cabling, and IBM's ACS in particular, is critical in allowing the bank to avoid potential future data bottlenecks, according to Muller. It also provides a convenient upgrade path to ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technology, "once clearly defined standards are developed," he adds.

With increasing communications traffic, the bank specifically looks for an easy upgrade path and individual shielded connectors as part of its network specifications. "It also eliminates problems regarding having power and data lines in close proximity, and enables us to run our cables as efficiently as possible," he explains.

Whereas shielded twisted pair (STP) cabling only protects cabling against radiation from the outside, SFTP insulates against outgoing radiation as well, Muller says. Installing the ACS cabling also turned out to be more than 30 per cent less expensive than unshielded twisted pair or STP cabling, he adds. "We're charged a fixed amount per meter [to pull cable through to desktops]. Even though the ACS cable is more expensive, you only have to pull one-eighth the amount of cable, so in the end it turned out to be cheaper."

Without intelligent network and systems software, bandwidth alone doesn't make for a smart network infrastructure, however, Muller acknowledges. Hence the bank's decision to install a VLAN in the new trading room that will pass data at 10 megabits/second. Using VLAN technology will also allow the bank to manage the network and add network segments with less fuss, he says.

The VLAN will enable end-users off the trading floor, such as risk control staff, to access real-time and historic data and applications. The new VLAN will tap into the TIB and also be used to upgrade applications and carry data from servers to PCs. The bank uses an IBM Token Ring network outside the trading room that will be linked to the trading floor's VLAN, Muller notes.

The ACS will also be used to link the components that make up BT's Type 73 digital platform. BT's Megalink product will enable delivery of digitized voice to BT PV405 dealerboards. The dealerboards will also be linked to Israel-based Nice Systems' digital voice recording system, according to a BT official.