Success-Case

GIGABYTE Rack Servers Overcome the Challenges of Financial Big Data

Sep 27, 2019 by GIGABYTE

The application of technological innovation to the financial industry has made the availability of information channels for investors ever more extensive. Investors want to keep their finger on the pulse of global finance, whether it is the price of stocks or futures in important financial markets, or receiving the most immediate financial news available. When processed by GIGABYTE’s Rack Servers, this huge and complex amount of data can be swiftly and systematically analyzed before being immediately transmitted and presented, helping people in the financial industry make more accurate decisions and seize more profitable opportunities.

Financial Markets Where “Time is Money” Seek the Most Up to Date & Accurate Information

“Time is Money” is a universally recognized phrase originally coined by Benjamin Franklin, and can be used to accurately summarize the rapid changes in numbers that result in a massive turnover of money in the financial industry. A blink of an eye may result in huge variations of profit, making people wary about the high risks of financial markets. If you want to demonstrate your prowess trading in these markets, you should have already evaluated the most up to date and accurate information before you even start.

Along with the rapid development and popularization of the Internet, the need for “immediacy” plays a pivotal role in financial transactions. One company has seized on this opportunity and has built an integrated financial information platform, providing a combination of financial data, news and analysis through the internet to multinational corporations, news agencies or financial and legal professionals, feeding them the latest market quotes and real-time trends so they can accurately grasp the best opportunities for trading.

A Multi-Functional Financial Information Platform? GIGABYTE’s Products Can Help Deliver Every Part

In order to provide investors with a better and more efficient service, a world-renowned financial information company constantly upgrades their IT infrastructure, using servers to process huge amounts of data such as global stock prices, corporate bonds, exchange rates, futures and other content, as well as financial market historical data, prices, trading information and so on.

After relevant data is collected, it is processed and analyzed before being instantly and accurately presented, and stored in a database. Since it must be ensured that all these operations are performed on a server with sufficient reliability and stability, this world-renowned financial information company has chosen to use GIGABYTE’s design optimized Rack Server products. 《Recommend for you: About GIGABYTE's Rack Server Products》

Processed by a GIGABYTE Rack Server, the most up-to-date financial data can be quickly and systematically analyzed, transmitted and then presented instantly.

Advantages of GIGABYTE Rack Servers

An “Ultra-Customizable” Server Provides More Possibilities for Different Hardware Configurations

“Our systems are designed to consider various changes in requirements. A single server can support many different configurations” explains Eric Kao, Server Product Marketing Manager for North America, consistent with GIGABYTE’s spirit of customer service of providing maximum product customization. After confirming the CPU and memory requirements with the customer, GIGABYTE can utilize a modular backplane board to support a different number and specification of NVMe SSD disks as required. In addition, networking cards, RAID cards or accelerator cards can also be installed into modular expansion slots to meet customer needs. Part of GIGABYTE’s Rack Server Series, the R181-NA0 solved this customer’s problem by allowing them to purchase a single machine to meet a variety of different hardware configurations, streamlining purchasing, simplifying management and thus reducing costs.

GIGABYTE’s R181-NA0 can be utilized for many different applications, from basic enterprise IT computing & storage to cloud and data services and even high performance computing. It can also be used to perform advanced data analytics, high frequency trading or encryption and data compression workloads, with adequate capacity and performance.

Including the full range of CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power), GIGABYTE’s 1U server supports components from the lowest to the highest specifications, as well as different storage drive types. For customers who simply want to perform management or data storage, GIGABYTE’s servers can support standard SATA or SAS drives; or for customers who need a system that supports fast, low latency storage, they can install NVMe SSDs. GIGABYTE can offer a wide range of options for different workloads and performance needs.

A Modular Chassis Design – Quickly Satisfying Needs of Various Customers

GIGABYTE has adopted a modular chassis development model for the design of our hardware that maintains expansion flexibility and versatility, and can quickly be used to produce many different SKUs and models that can meet customers’ needs regardless of any add-on functionalities required. This is a very powerful advantage of GIGABYTE’s server products, and can be used to quickly respond to various needs in the face of hundreds of customers in the market.

Recalling the time when GIGABYTE began competing to win the project with this world-renowned financial information company, we provided fully customized products for the customer to evaluate, which had outperformed other competitors no matter in terms of product functionality, stability, benchmark scores or service. GIGABYTE was more proactive in understanding the needs of customers in advance and adjusting the product accordingly, as well as providing the customer with continuous re-adjustments in a relatively short period of time to generate better performance.

Supporting the Latest Management Software to Help Customers to Reduce Operating Costs – GIGABYTE is Ahead of the Competition

Enterprise customers like this world-renowned financial information company also have many requisites about server management software, such as for the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) which collects environmental information such as server operation status, system voltage, temperature and fan speed. The customer requested that our server could be managed in a simpler and more efficient manner, allowing administrators to keep abreast of the working status of the server and control it more easily, allowing them to work more efficiency thus reduce operating costs. Therefore, when starting the new project the customer had requested that GIGABYTE products could support Redfish API (Application Programming Interface).《Glossary: What is BMC?》

Redfish API is different from traditional server management software. By simply launching the software program remotely, the user can integrate and manage servers from different manufacturers or installed during different time periods using the same software interface and commands, which is very important for enterprise customers. In order to win the new project GIGABYTE’s technical team put in a lot of effort, assigning dedicated engineers in order to clarify all customer requirements, diligently customizing the product design, and sending it back and forth for verification testing until the customer was satisfied. In addition, GIGABYTE spent a lot more time proactively enabling all products that were supplied to support the latest version of Redfish API, leading the competition.

GIGABYTE also provides value-added service for our server products, such as supplying management software files for download to assist with customer co-operation. Eric Kao explained that after the project was completed, the feedback from the customer was quite satisfactory. “Because we had a direct understanding of the customer’s requirements, and through actual testing, we confirmed that the customized products we supplied were exactly what they needed. This process illustrated the unique service and flexibility of GIGABYTE”.

Technical Ability as a Given with Attentive Service as a Bonus – Enterprise Customers Will Surely Be Won Over

For enterprise customers who are most concerned about a server’s serviceability and manageability, such as ease of installation, upgrade and efficient maintenance, as well as a graphical interface and a complete set of management commands, GIGABYTE has shown the greatest effort, not only providing excellent technical strength in hardware performance but also attentive software support and service. GIGABYTE strives not only to do something, but do it to the best of our ability. The results of our customer’s validation tests affirm the strength of GIGABYTE’s products and service, and we will always put our customers first in order to become their premier choice for server products.

"Do you have a way to provide products that meet your customers' needs in the shortest period of time? This is something that has never been done by others, but GIGABYTE can do it”. The attentiveness of GIGABYTE’s team to the application of server products will surely open new opportunities for our customers.

《Learn More: Did You Know? GIGABYTE’s Servers Are Helping to Launch Europe’s Space Ambitions》