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Intel recently released quad-core Xeon processors (code named “Harpertown”) based on a 45nm manufacturing process, which the company claims significantly reduce power consumption compared to its previous generation of quad-core processors (”Clovertown”). Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC) performed a study comparing the power consumption of a server using Harpertown processors to the same server using Clovertown processors, running a market data load of 2 million updates per second across a stacked RMDS configuration that utilised as much of the eight cores in this system as possible. The Harpertown processor decreased the server’s overall power consumption by 16 per cent (333 watts versus 395 watts) and increased the server’s market data efficiency (updates per second per watt) by 19 per cent (6010 ups/W versus 5060 ups/W).

STAC News Release

Technorati Tags: Securities Technology Analysis Center, STAC, Intel, Intel Xeon Harpertown processor, Clovertown, RMDS

Sun has joined the Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC) Benchmark Council to help define standard performance metrics for trading technologies and has become an Innovation Sponsor for the Manhattan-based STAC Lab. On the STAC Benchmark Council, Sun will contribute to specifications under consideration by its participating trading firms. As an Innovation Sponsor, Sun is providing the lab with several of its latest technologies, including the 2U Sun Fire X4450 server with four quad-core Intel Xeon processors, the Sun Fire X4600 server with 8 AMD Opteron processors, and the 64-thread Sun T5120 server with UltraSPARC T2 processors and integrated 10 Gigabit Ethernet controllers.

STAC News Release

Technorati Tags: Sun, Securities Technology Analysis Center, STAC, STAC Benchmark Council, STAC Lab, 2U Sun Fire X4450, Intel, quad-core Intel Xeon processors, Sun Fire X4600, AMD, AMD Opteron, Sun T5120, UltraSPARC T2, 10 Gigabit Ethernet

Quant House’s QuantFeedhandler, its feed handler technology to standardise exchange raw market data feeds, is able to decode more than 2 millions messages per second, benchmark tests carried out at fasterLAB, the Intel low latency lab in London, on several versions of the multicore Intel Xeon platform, have shown.

Technorati Tags: Quant House, QuantFeedhandler, Intel, Multicore Intel Xeon Processor, fasterLAB, exchange market data feeds, benchmarks

Low latency technology provider Wombat is running a fully subscribed pilot of a new middleware solution which it claims enables ultra high performance messaging with minimal data centre resource consumption.

The vendor reckons it has proven the power of Wombat Data Fabric and its ability to provide market-leading density on open, standard x86 hardware by running a full data from OPRA, the US options market, on a single Intel-based server available in a single rack unit (1U) form factor. In the test using a full day of OPRA data, the OPRA feed handler, running on a two socket eight core Intel 5400 Xeon server, published all updates on all symbols to MAMA clients across a single Voltaire network switch. Average CPU utilisation was just 10 per cent, escalating to less than 35 per cent at peaks, with a mean latency of less than 100 microseconds. No speciality or proprietary hardware devices, such as FPGA cards, are required by the solution, reducing cost and complexity when compared with alternative “appliance” approaches, Wombat reckons.

Wombat News Release

Technorati Tags: Wombat, Wombat Data Fabric, OPRA, Intel, Intel 5400 Xeon server, CPU utilisation, Voltaire, Voltaire network switch

BEA Systems has published a benchmark of its CEP offering - Weblogic Event Server - demonstrating microsecond-level latencies when processing one million events per second. The benchmark was run on Intel’s Caneland platform, compring four quad core processors.
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Aspeed Software is the first of Intel’s financial markets software partners to publish performance figures leveraging Intel’s recently introduced Xeon 5400 chip. Benchmarking a single-threaded options pricing application, Aspeed reports that a 5400-based system delivers a 2.2-fold run time reduction while consuming just 13 percent more power, when compared to a Xeon 5100-based system.
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InfiniBand specialist Mellanox is hosting a series of seminars entitled “Accelerating the New Global Trading Markets” in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore in early December. They will focus on today’s financial applications and the latest technology for accelerating performance of trade execution and bandwidth intensive financial applications.
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Intel Corporation has joined The Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC) Benchmark Council and has entered into a multi-year lab agreement with STAC as an innovation sponsor. The agreement builds upon a benchmarking relationship that Intel established with STAC over a year ago. Intel has also made a multi-year commitment to provide the Manhattan-based STAC Lab with the latest Intel technologies. This includes its just-announced 45-nanometer Intel Xeon processor 5400 series (Harpertown), which preliminary STAC testing has found to decrease power consumption by 20 per cent over a previous Xeon processor 5300 series (Clovertown) when supporting the same market data workload.

STAC News Release

Technorati Tags: Intel, Securities Technology Analysis Centre, STAC, STAC Benchmark Council, STAC Lab, Intel Xeon Processor 5400, Intel Xeon processor 5300, Harpertown, Clovertown

Intel yesterday announced its revolutionary Xeon 5400 chip - the first based on its Penryn technology - and expects servers based on the device to deliver significant performance and power consumption benefits across a wide range of low latency financial applications, including risk analytics, market datafeed handling and transactional execution systems, according to Intel executives.
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Intel and Rogue Wave Software have released their latest benchmark for a Hydra-based transactional application running on Intel’s Xeon 7300 Quad Core processors. A headline 68,940 transactions per minute was acheived. Hydra allows single threaded applications to leverage the benefits of multi threading, in a multi core environment.

Download Benchmark Overview

Technorati Tags: intel, rogue wave, hydra, multi core