Users Find ORBs, Other Middleware Are Needed To Build Java Applications

NEW YORK--As more of the world's trading firms have learned how to make middleware work, they've also found that much of the middleware they're using needs to speak Java.

The object-oriented programming language from Sun Microsystems, Java combined with object request broker (ORB) and other middleware technologies has become an extremely important building block for many infrastructures.

A number of major players have found ways to apply Java and middleware to speed trading and access to trading information--for both traders and customers. What follows is a sampling of what's been done just since the beginning of the year.

Deutsche Bank has implemented a Java-based global, real-time messaging system for 100 traders, allowing them to share trading information separately from the bank's internally developed DB Chat service (TTW, March 16). The bank licensed the Global Electronic Messaging System (GEMS) from New York-based System Programming & Network Computing (SPNC) for traders in Deutsche Bank's Treasury Group.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter began a pilot test in February using Java clients, objects held in cached memory and the Sybase relational database to extend Morgan's mainframe-based Trade Analysis and Processing System (TAPS), a highly regarded back-office platform (TTW, March 23). The effort may ultimately give trading floor personnel quick, Java-based access to what was once considered strictly back-office information--the internally and externally generated counterparty information of the accounts governed by TAPS.

Bear, Stearns earlier this year began rolling out a new system to simplify software distribution to its correspondent clearing customers, who will be able to get updates for their clearing applications via Java-based browsers and push technology from Marimba (TTW, April 20). Using Java allows the New York-based investment bank and brokerage firm to push only Java class files to clients, a move which Bear Stearns expects will ease the traffic over the network.

Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) extended its Primetrade Internet- and Java-based trading service to handle order routing and execution of global exchange-listed derivatives (TTW, July 6). Primetrade is a proprietary Web-based trading platform that the New York-based investment banking division of Switzerland's Credit Suisse Group began developing three years ago. The service also relies on the Ambrosia publish/subscribe middleware, the rights of which are now the property of Ixnet, which bought them from the now defunct Open Horizon (TTW, May 11).

Also in New York, inter-dealer brokerage Euro Brokers has inaugurated an Internet service that uses the Java-based Slingshot Internet-based, real-time data delivery system from CSK Software. Euro Brokers may establish an Internet push channel for its Java front ends through one of CSK's partners, Marimba, which offers its Castanet service (TTW, January 26).

San Francisco-based Charles Schwab has been converting its proprietary Schwablink service into Schwablink Web, a higher-performance, Java-based extranet that will disseminate real-time trading and research services to institutional and other clients (TTW, February 2). The discount broker planned to use standards such as Java, Web browsers, Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and the Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) to restructure the product.

Frankfurt-based DG Bank is using Java in its automated bonds, equity options and warrants trading system that is based on Tibco's TIB/Mercury order routing software (TTW, May 25). The DG Bank system, which was to be rolled out to the bank's 2,500 primary member banks in June, has Java applet front ends that enable DG Bank's traders and salespeople to monitor the system. The Java front ends also communicate with the bank's back-end system via Tibco's TIB/Rendezvous messaging middleware.

Java desktops also feature in Standard Chartered Bank's ongoing rollout of a $20 million global treasury risk management IT infrastructure (TTW, February 23). The architecture, destined to connect all of the bank's treasury applications, will be supported by Java-based clients connected to high-end servers from Sun Microsystems, an Informix database and the Enterprise Transaction Express (ETX) messaging middleware from Tibco. The architecture is live in Singapore with Hong Kong due to follow suit in July after some delays (TTW, June 29).

In another part of the world, Johannesburg-based Rand Merchant Bank is using Java and Corba to gradually make its internally developed trading systems accessible to traders over the Internet (TTW, February 9).