ITRS Develops Geneos Interface for Oracle’s In-Memory Grid

Software monitoring specialist ITRS Group has developed an interface for its Geneos applications performance management system to Oracle’s Coherence in-memory data grid, a data management technology that is finding favour in capital markets companies running real-time, data intensive applications such as risk management and algo trading systems.

The Geneos interface to Oracle Coherence, which is available today, is the first Geneos interface to a data grid and is installed in a handful of investment banks that worked with the company to define the software through a beta programme. ITRS says Oracle Coherence monitoring can be standalone, but more importantly, the data grid can be brought into a Geneos managed environment to monitor how a whole system or service is performing from end to end. It is this holistic view of systems performance that ITRS claims is its differentiator in the software monitoring and performance management market.

Misha Kipnis, chief technology officer at ITRS, explains: “The interface to Oracle Coherence makes it very easy for operations teams using Geneos to gain the visibility they need to anticipate problems in their Coherence-based environments and take corrective action before there is an impact on operations. This is of great importance where speed and availability of systems are crucial to financial institutions.”

Essentially, Geneos is a software and agent solution with the Geneos workstation installed at a customer site and a framework of agents embedded in applications around the world. The agents collect software management metrics in real time, relaying these through a gateway consolidation point to the Geneos workstation. Rules can be added to the metrics, for example, if latency rises during trading hours, to display amber alert and notify X, after 30 seconds, notify Y. Metrics can also be logged into the data grid for historical data analysis.

The performance metrics are usually delivered to a dashboard on the Geneos workstation that can be customised by the user, but ITRS also has customers that display the dashboard on large plasma screens in their trading rooms and show exchange availability and latency to reach tem. Typically, the dashboard shows the data in number format, but a ticking graphics showing latency over the past few minutes is often included. As well as the Geneos workstation, ITRS offers a cut down Geneos solution that is delivered as a web service. To reduce latency to the minimum, a co-location solution is available with agents deployed in data centre servers reporting to collection points either in the co-lo facility or at the bank and a Geneos workstation connected to the remote server. Preconfigured commands can be automated or user invoked.

“Geneos offers an holistic view of operations, not just latency or performance. Many monitoring systems show what has happened, but Geneos is real-time, with metrics flowing in-memory to achieve high speed. Our customers say they can see issues developing before they cause any downtime. This gives them a heads up for a few minutes to fix the problem,” says Kipnis.

Kipnis explains that first line support operators usually use the Geneos workstation, connecting it to particular gateways to view specific application activity, but it is also used by second line developers that want to observe new products in action.

The next user group comprises IT specialists aligned to business areas, perhaps the IT professional dedicated to the equity trading desk or an IT manager needing a high level view of how applications are performing and how quickly people are fixing any problems. Information gathered by Geneos can also be delivered into applications such as algo trading to support trading decisions.

“This is the direction we are taking, giving business users views of performance,” says Kipnis. “They need a different view to the IT operations team, they don’t need to see underlying metrics, but whether a service is working well. Perhaps the latency of orders to one or another exchange. Or when it is possible to trade the same instruments on multiple exchanges, price is important, but so is latency and they can see that.”

To date, ITRS has developed about 100 interfaces to different applications. Some are generic; others link to trading software from companies including Fidessa, SunGard, Patsystems, Trading Technologies and Orc. There are also database, FIX engine and network interfaces, while ITRS also offers a toolkit that allows investment banks with in-house developed applications to define metrics and adapt them to the Geneos environment.

Targeting licence sales in the low tens over the coming year, Kipnis concludes: “This is our first interface to a data grid, but more trading areas that need fast access to a lot of data are installing in-memory grid technology so we will develop more interfaces as more data grids emerge.”