Case Study SAN Wonders For BSE

With trading

volumes of three thousand transactions per day and growing further,

the Bombay Stock Exchange needed a reliable storage system to consolidate

the flow of data for its BOLT and BOSS projects. Storage area networks

provided the solution.

The Bombay Stock

Exchange (BSE), one of the busiest stock exchanges in India, averages

about 3,000 online trading transactions accounting for nearly Rs2,500

crore per day, all through the year. The exchange was confronted

with an exponential growth in trading volumes, with online trading

going on in all major exchanges. "We needed a robust storage

and backup mechanism with capacity to continuously support mission-critical

applications, data consolidation and clustering. These were the

primary reasons that led us to consider a more comprehensive storage

solution," explains Sunny John, Deputy Manager, Systems, BSE.

The objectives

set by BSE were to detect potential market abuses at a nascent stage

to reduce the availability of market participants to influence price

and volume of securities, management of Settlement Default Risk

in real time, and to enable and strengthen the Self Regulatory Mechanism.

After evaluating other possibilities, BSE decided to implement two

rudimentary Storage area networks (SANs) using fiber channel for

its BOSS (BSE Online Surveillance System) and SHINTU (Shifting of

Non-Trading activities to Unix) projects with Compaq as the implementer.

The Surveillance System is the only real-time system in Indian stock

exchanges.

The

groundwork



During the SAN implementation process, the Exchange procured Xeon-based
multi-processor Proliant servers and dual controller fault tolerant

disk array systems. The two Compaq Proliant servers with four CPUs

of 1GB RAM each were connected to the disk array RA 8K using the

Secure Path Software for high availability. The RA 8K storage system

has dual redundant controllers with 256MB cache on each controller,

approximately 150GB of disk space and six redundant hot-plug power

supplies. The RA 8K system is capable of delivering up to 20,000

Iops (input-output operations per second).

The system is

connected to the servers through redundant 7-port fiber channel

hubs to create a dedicated 100Mbps FC SAN. Similarly, in the SHINTU

project, the two HP 9000 K 580 systems in a clustered configuration

along with a RA 8K was achieved. Compaq had taken the responsibility

of interfacing the RA 8K with the HP servers, failing which BSE

would have returned the equipment. However, the need to connect

the two SANs has not been taken up as they are two different applications.

"The implementation

of SAN has helped the Exchange in reducing response time, improving

risk management, strengthening the self-regulatory mechanism and

ensuring quick compliance with SEBI requirements," states John.

This has won investors' confidence through increased integrity of

market and enhancement of market safety. Through the movement to

an open Unix environment, which has been commissioned recently,

BSE has significantly increased its capacity to transact up to 10,000

trades a day.