The corporate and investment banking group of Societe Generale (SG CIB) is to use Grid technology from Platform Computing to harness spare computing capacity for running number crunching applications in its commodities business.
SG CIB chose Platform's Symphony software after an extensive competitive evaluation, citing the firm's financial sector references, which include Deutsche Bank, Fidelity Investments, Royal Bank of Canada and JPMorgan Chase, among others.
At SG CIB, the technology will initially be used to accelerate and grid-enable compute and time-sensitive applications in the bank's commodities department, drawing on the spare capacity of 500 PCs in the corporate grid, with a view to expanding the infrastructure across the organisation.
Platform has also unveiled significant new contracts with Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg (LBBW) and credit card processor Capital One.
LBBW is using the technology for performing risk management analytics across more than a million loans and securities accounts.
Peter Oellers, head of risk technology, LBBW, comments: "Thanks to Platform, we achieved time savings of 80 percent in our risk management processes. Our risk assessments take significantly less time. Another important criterion for our decision was the solution's ease of use. It was not necessary to make code changes to any of our applications."
Compatible with both .NET and J2EE, the Platform package features an Application Development Environment (ADE) and intelligent workload orchestration and resource provisioning controlled through a centralised, Web-based management interface.
The firm is looking to capitalise on interest in the technology by opening a New York-based 'Financial Services Acceleration Centre'. Working with key partners including IBM, Egenera, HP, Powerllel and Axiom, Platform says the centres will provide provide technical consulting, application integration and professional services, including Linux and Windows-based solutions.