We have all heard the old expression that “time equals money." It is perhaps that formula which is the reason solid state disk technology has been used for a number of years within the financial industry. By performing more transactions in less time, solid state disks have become the tool of choice to increase revenue.

The major areas of the financial industry which regularly utilize solid state disks include:

• Trading
• Billing
• Credit card verification
• Account posting
• Insurance

Trading

The power of solid state disk technology was recently rediscovered by Wall Street while planning for the decimalization of stock quotations on the NYSE and NASDAQ.  The changeover to decimal format was anticipated to easily quadruple the number of executions per day, and many brokerages were not prepared to handle that increase in volume so quickly.  

Decimalization has been accomplished but brokerages around the globe have continued to turn to solid state disk technology to multiply the number of executions processed per day.  The reasons for the increased use of solid state disks are many.

1.) The trading market today is becoming increasingly volatile with surprise earnings announcements, unforeseen interest rate changes, and quickly-circulating economic reports.  These factors, coupled with automatic computer buy/sell programs can make milliseconds worth millions.

2.) Many firms now offer commission-free trades if the market order is not executed in less than 60 seconds.  For brokerages using solid state disks, this task is easily achieved.  But for the firms that cannot offer this lightning-fast trading guarantee, many may lose clients or face the threat of litigation from customers whose trades were delayed or unexecuted.

3.) Global markets and off-hours trading through systems such as Island and Archipelago are making 24-hour trading common.  The window of opportunity for settling transactions and posting to accounts is now getting smaller, requiring more to be done in less time.

Solid state disks capitalize on all of these opportunities by operating hundreds of times faster than regular drives.  With the addition of a solid state disk to a storage subsystem, brokerages can often double or triple the number of trades they can execute each day, turning this technology into the newest tool for a competitive advantage.

Billing

Billing systems have long seen the value in solid state accelerators. In very large database applications like those of utility or wireless providers, the monthly billing can be a formidable and time-consuming task.  Querying databases with millions of records can cause the system to become sluggish, delaying billing and receivables.

The databases that are prime candidates for acceleration include Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server. By moving only the heavily used “hot” files in these applications to a solid state disk, performance can immediately increase 200-400%. Common files include temporary tables, redo logs, and heavily used indices.

Credit Card Verification

In the world of plastic money, credit card verification and fraud detection are the way banks prevent the equivalent of a holdup.  The verification process is critical for transactions, but can become a formidable task. 

When a transaction begins via credit card, it is important to verify that the card has not exceeded its spending limit or been reported stolen. This verification involves searching through millions of credit card numbers within seconds. 

Solid state disks perform these transactions at breakneck speed.  This permits more credit card transactions to be accomplished per hour, especially during busy transaction times such as the holidays.

Account Posting:

For banks that offer their customers account information over the Internet, real-time posting of balanced account information is vital to the livelihood of the business. 

During peak transaction periods, daily posting of all cash-clearing transactions can often cause the system to become unbearably slow.  Should the end of the month fall on a business day when other end-of-month programs are running, the response times on the system can be further reduced for employees as well.

Solid state disks have helped triple the number of transactions processed per hour and have cut hours-long memo-posting times in half.  

Insurance
 
Since solid state disks work so well at accelerating databases, they are beneficial in improving the performance of very large insurance company databases. One purpose of these immense databases is to estimate the firm’s actuarial exposure and to estimate the best premiums to members. Understanding where profits are being lost, and where exposure is greatest requires continually mining of data for these trends.  Solid state disks help supercharge databases so this process can be completed quicker, more frequently, and without incurring the costs of purchasing faster servers.

Summary:

When I/O subsystems cannot keep pace with the server and a bottleneck occurs, adding a faster CPU will not alleviate the problem.  Solving these bottlenecks requires faster I/O to disk and the fastest peripherals available are solid state disks.