Open Source Grid Computing in the Finance Industry Alex Efimov STFC Kite Club Knowledge Exchange Advisor UK CERN Technology Transfer Officer +44 (0)

The STFC was formed on 1 April 2007 by the merger of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) It is one of seven national research councils in the UK. Annual budget is around £600m: – funds the best research within in particle physics, astronomy, nuclear physics and space science; – enables the research community to have access to the best facilities in the world; –increases the UK technology capability, engagement with industry and knowledge transfer. STFC Introduction

High costs of establishing a partnership Asymmetric information flows Differences between scientific and business cultures Insufficient level of market level readiness Lack of skills and experience Equity gap STFC helps to overcome the following problems gLite Commercialisation Project

Constellation Technologies Ltd Constellation Technologies Ltd, registered in October 2007 in the UK A spin-off company from STFC Based at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Develops and distributes the computer virtualization solutions based on gLite Grid middleware Employs IT experts from CERN and UK universities Contact: Nick Trigg, CLIK/RAL Constellation Technologies, Ltd. will provide following commercial services: Commercial technical support and training Develop and distribute commercial enterprise and global solutions based on the gLite middleware Technical consultancy to software vendors and end-users Build commercial e-Infrastructure based on gLite and offer it on pay-as-you-use basis (Utility Computing Model)

Grid in Finance: Current Status Vast majority of large financial institutions use Grid The largest share of the market (around 75%) DataSynapse and Platform Open source presence (Condor) is negligible Proprietary vendors know better what customers in the financial industry need

Grid in Finance Infrastructure Level Reducing overheads Improving manageability Planning and flexibility Application Level Risk Management Portfolio Management Derivatives Pricing Transactional activities

Facing New Challenges Complexity of modern IT infrastructures: physical servers, virtual machines, clusters, Grids, geographical distribution Cost of electricity Credit crunch Further pressures to reduce costs Openness to the acceptable security concept

Case Studies Bank 1 Around 30k computers in more than 10 data centres Decentralised IT: resources belong to departments Use DataSynapse: more than 200 Grids Want to try virtualisation Bank 2 Around 20k computers in 9 data centres Centralised IT: all users are on hard SLAs Use Platform and Condor Little or no interest in virtualisation

Finding Solutions Improving utilisation rates through market based algorithms for resource allocation Accessing external infrastructures on- demand Using a single management platform for all computing resources Opportunity for gLite

gLite for Finance Grant Reference: ST/G000263/1 Principal Investigator: Dr Neil Geddes, STFC (RAL) Project Title: Industrial research to integrate gLite (Grid software) into a platform for the commercial trading of computer resources Funds Awarded: £198,791.11

Improving Utilization Hardware Servers: (-) low utilisation rates, scalability problems Utilisation Virtual Servers: (+) improved utilisation rates, better scalability, easy disaster recovery (-) increased number of servers to manage, incompatible virtualization platforms Enterprise/Departmental Grid: (+) improves utilisation rates of physical servers, enables collaboration (-) limited scalability, lack of interoperability between vendors, limited efficiency of policy based mechanisms 100% 0% Grid Cloud Computing: (+) no need to own hardware, shared access, improved utilisation through pay-as-you-use (-) incompatible platforms, ‘fair price’ is dubious to users

gLite Architecture for Finance File Catalogue Logging & Book-keeping ResourceBroker StorageResource ComputingResource InformationService Job Status Datasets info Author. &Authen. Job Submit Event Job Query Job Status Input files Input Output Output files Publish Resource info User/Grid interface Demand Offer VRM

Competition Hardware Operating System Virtualisation Enterprise Grid Enterprise Cloud Cloud Constellation Technologies Incompatible Standards Creates pools of resources Higher utilisation rates Incompatible Standards Interfaces Interfaces and Market Mechanisms Key differentiators: Open source – no vendor lock-in Scalability

PIPSS Features Maximum STFC contribution: £125k per year Maximum project duration: 3 years Calls: quarterly Maximum STFC contribution : £110k per year Maximum project duration: 12 months Calls: applications may be made at any time Mini-PIPSS Features STFC Funding for Partnerships

Technology Transfer How to get involved: –Apply for Mini-PIPSS and PIPSS grant –Consultancy projects with industry –Constellation Technology Ltd is looking for people with gLite knowledge and programming skills