IBM says its eServer p690 server completed over 24,000 transactions per second on OM's transaction platform, setting a new world record for peak exchange performance at more than twice the throughput of any previous test.
Piet Van de Velde, global head of markets infrastructure, IBM Financial Services Sector, says the result compares with a typical peak throughput on the Nasdaq exchange of about 5000 transactions per second and a record peak throughput on London's Liffe exchange of just over 10,000 transactions per second.
The live exchange performance test was conducted at IBM's benchmarking and testing facilities in Montpelier, France and used OM's trading platform running on an IBM infrastructure that included an IBM eServer p690 AIX server (32-way, 128 GB RAM) linked to IBM ESS 800 and IBM FAStT 700 enterprise storage servers.
The test was witnessed and monitored by senior representatives from one of the world's largest exchanges.
Van de Velde says: "The real challenge for exchanges is not their overall volume which can be as much as several million transactions a day, it is the fact that they experience dramatic peaks in throughput - primarily immediately prior to the market opening, but also immediately prior to its closure at the end of any trading day."
He adds that security, resilience, reliability and scalability also need to be considered as well as performance.