The Irish Stock Exchange is preparing to deploy Red Hat
Enterprise 10, as it modernises its Oracle database
system.
The exchange has begun regression testing a bespoke Oracle 10g
database application running across a cluster comprising two Dell
Xeon-based servers using Red Hat Enterprise.
The application, which takes a feed from the Deutsche B”rse
exchange and publishes financial information, was originally
written in C++ and has now been redeveloped in Java for Linux. It
runs within a secure intranet.
Having evaluated Red Hat in a number of discrete projects, Alan
Finan, IT manager at the Irish Stock Exchange said, "Red Hat is
stable enough for production."
The exchange's IT staff comprise both Windows and Unix
administrators. Finan said admin staff did not need external
training to manage Red Hat.
A client application written in Visual Basic running on Windows
is used to connect to the Oracle database running on Red Hat, using
Microsoft's ODBC middleware.
In order to connect to the Linux system, Finan said, "There was
no change needed on the client [application]."
He said end-users on the exchange floor will be unaware they are
connecting to a Linux system.
The new system replaces an Oracle 8.06 database application
running on Hewlett-Packard 9000 hardware.
In the test environment, the exchange documented a tenfold
performance increase for database queries and a twentyfold increase
in overall performance.
Finan has been a user of Linux since 1994 and believes the open
source operating system is viable for enterprise use. One factor
often raised against Linux is support. Finan said, "There are
thousands of people on the net who will assist you and get you an
answer within 24 hours."