Advantages of a Personal Workstation in Financial Services IT Environments

Transcription

1 Advantages of a Personal Workstation in Financial Services IT Environments Personal workstation technology is different to that of a PC; these differences generally allow professionals in financial services industries to get more from their IT investment. Executive Overview... 2 Introduction... 3 Comparison of Workstation and PC Technologies... 4 Processor Technology... 4 Memory Subsystems... 6 Multi-display Technology... 6 I/O Subsystems... 7 Packaging and Chassis Design... 8 Operating Environments... 9 Why Choose a Workstation? Higher System Reliability Better return on investment Enhanced performance Robust and reliable applications Remote Graphics Other HP Personal Workstation Advantages Popular HP Workstations in the Financial Services Industry HP Workstation xw HP Workstation xw HP Workstation xw Conclusion For more information Useful URLs HP Offices and Contact Information... 19

2 Executive Overview Typical IT environments in financial institutions manage large volumes of high value transactions. For organizations to compete in this marketplace, they must make use of information technology effectively to ensure accuracy and security as well as to drive down operating costs. IT managers are sometimes tempted to use low-cost PCs as a hardware platform for various financial applications, such as those found on the trading floor or in front office venues. While these platforms certainly have their place, financial applications significantly benefit from the technical robustness and capabilities of personal workstations. Complementing the technology benefits are the equally important business aspects of employing personal workstations. In the case of HP workstations, additional levels of support, a special customer advisory council, and dedicated applications support teams are all part of the benefits of using workstations as a key component of a financial user s environment. Technologies and business benefits include: Enhanced implementations of standard Intel processors and chipsets. The highest performing processor configurations are used, including multiprocessor/multi-core implementations, and error detection and correction circuitry on memory subsystems. Highly expandable I/O subsystems and multiple displays. Workstation I/O subsystems are designed for longer lifecycles, higher performance graphics subsystems, and support for multiple (up to eight) monitors on each workstation. Packaging and chassis design. The electromechanical design of an HP workstation supports more and higher powered I/O cards, disk subsystems, and multiple displays. For example, HP has tailored the packaging of one workstation model the HP workstation xw6400 specifically for space-constrained environments (such as a trading floor), providing a powerful multiprocessing system in one of the smallest enclosures in the industry. Complementary business benefits. HP makes specific investments in service and support of workstations and the benchmarking of workstation applications in financial industries, as well as tools for lifecycle and infrastructure management. Formation of a Workstation Financial Advisory Council (WFAC). This HP-sponsored customer council facilitates collaboration on the design of future generations of HP workstation products and solutions for the financial industry. For example, HP designed the xw6000 series specifically to meet the needs of financial services professionals based on customer collaboration and direct product feedback. Remote Graphics Software. An HP exclusive, the patented Remote Graphics Software (RGS) provides remote workstation computing capability for mission-critical environments, disaster recovery scenarios, and remote office access. Because of its commitment to the financial services industry, technology leadership, and delivering excellence in service and support, HP is the acknowledged leader in providing workstations to the financial services industry. International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that in Q1 2006, HP delivered 49% of the Personal Workstation Desktop units in this market outpacing the unit sales of the next two vendors combined. HP has been the unit market leader in Personal Workstation Desktop sales in the financial services industry since Q In summary, HP and HP personal workstation products provide distinct advantages to financial industry customers, especially when compared to the benefits offered by use of traditional commodity PCs. 1 IDC WW/Regional Workstation Tracker, May,

3 Introduction Financial services applications require high levels of system reliability and performance at a reasonable cost. For example, equipment used in space-constrained environments, like trading floors, requires a high degree of reliability to support mission-critical applications, provides the highest levels of performance, and must be easily and quickly serviced. An IT professional managing these kinds of environments has primary concerns about: Reliability systems must have the smallest amount of downtime possible (even when considering planned activities such as moves, adds, and changes). Of particular importance is reliability of internal system components (e.g., memory) to minimize data corruption or service interruptions. Processing Power the highest levels of performance must be available at specific price points. Environment management of new and existing equipment within the constraints of a given facility. Concerns include system packaging issues (footprint, cooling, acoustics, expansion and upgradeability), furniture requirements, placement of numerous monitors, and thermal management. Connectivity options the ability of a workstation to manage a large number of displays (often four or more), or to be managed remotely for increased user productivity, disaster recovery planning, or infrastructure flexibility. This paper illustrates the advantages of using personal workstations to address these concerns (especially when compared to use of a traditional desktop PC). The goal of this paper is to help IT departments make a choice that provides the best return on investment, and the best hardware match available for users' applications. Additionally, this paper highlights when and why workstations that provide multiple processor cores have a distinct advantage in the financial industry. 3

4 Comparison of Workstation and PC Technologies Financial professionals prefer to use the highest-quality, highest-performing tools. Such tools best enable short turn-around on data analysis, what-if scenario calculations, and database management functions. The features of a personal workstation provide this kind of toolset; these features are discussed (and contrasted to that of a PC) below. Processor Technology The implementation of processor technology is a major distinction between workstations and PCs. Foremost; workstations generally use processors that are more powerful. Additional processor cores, which provide more aggregate performance, are made available by adding processor sockets and employing processors that have multiple cores 2. These processor implementations provide a tremendous advantage in providing higher aggregate performance. Multitasking and Multithreading One of the biggest advantages that workstations offer is multiprocessing. Most modern financial applications take advantage of additional processor cores either through some form of parallelism (multitasking), or by running multiple jobs at once (multiprocessing). Adding a processor core in an existing enclosure is a very cost-effective mechanism for increasing performance with only an incremental investment. As shown in Figure 1, a multitasking/multithreaded environment increases performance by spreading operating system services, applications, and portions of applications across available processors. Figure 1. System and application performance can be increased through both multitasking and multithreading. In Figure 1, tasks 1, 2, and 3 are broken into multiple threads (represented by different shades of the task s color); these threads are then scheduled across the processors. For simplicity, this example assumes the overhead of parallelization is minimal; in reality there can be substantial overhead in multithreading. For this reason, performance of multithreaded applications is difficult to predict. 2 Dual Core is a new technology designed to improve performance of multithreaded software products and hardware-aware multitasking operating systems and may require appropriate operating system software for full benefit; check with software provider to determine suitability; Not all customers or software applications will necessarily benefit from use of this technology. 4

5 In a throughput environment (running many applications simultaneously which is common in this environment), additional processor cores provide incremental performance increases over a singlecore system. This means that a financial trader, for example, gets better response time, and is able to manage larger (more accurate) models using a dual-processor, dual-core workstation than with a single-processor workstation. Latest Intel processor technology HP workstations employ the latest Intel processor technology, the Intel Core microarchitecture, which features a complete redesign of the processor microarchitecture. The new designs combine elements of the previous Netburst architecture, the very successful mobile core architecture, and additional innovations, providing features that directly benefit customers in the financial industries, including lower power requirements and substantial increases in performance. Figure 2 illustrates performance of a benchmark ( FinBench ) that is designed to model real-world stresses that financial applications place on workstation subsystems. FinBench is a close representation of the types of loads placed on workstations in this environment. The second benchmark ( Monte Carlo ) uses different functions than the FinBench simulation, and more closely represents Microsoft Excel usage. As can be seen, the effect of the additional processor cores is dramatic. Note that these improvements, along with system-level architectural revisions such as dual independent front side busses and higher bandwidth memory access, have lead to huge performance increases over the previous generation Intel Xeon -based systems. At the same time performance has been increased, system-level power consumption has decreased dramatically for similar configurations, reducing air conditioning requirements, space requirements, and lowering facilities costs. Figure 2. Performance improvements using the multiprocessing capabilities of the HP Workstation xw

6 Memory Subsystems ECC Memory Workstations typically support Error Checking and Correction (ECC) memory, a server-like feature that provides protection against soft errors in the memory that could lead to process and application failures. ECC memory is important to data integrity and system reliability because it detects and corrects soft (transient) single-bit memory errors errors that are inherent to all DRAM-based systems. If a desktop user is primarily running and word processing applications, data integrity issues may not be too important, however, when each transaction may be worth millions of dollars, a zero flipped to a one (or vice-versa) could be disastrous. Figure 3 illustrates an expected yearly error rate for a collection of systems, each with 1 GB of memory. The statistics rely on a DRAM specification called a FIT 1 device fails in 1 billion hours. For a single DIMM with a 10,000 FIT, a soft error occurs every 3-4 months (for reference, the calculated average time between 2-bit soft errors is measured in millions of years). A customer with many systems with multiple DIMMs per system will experience a much higher overall failure rate, based on the total number of DIMMs. Further, this effect is compounded at elevated temperatures, common in many financial environments due to the close proximity of large amounts of IT equipment. Figure 3. Memory errors per year for non-ecc memory. Note that for ECC memory, the number is always zero. The significance of these errors to end users depends upon many factors, including the pattern of application memory usage, which bit in a word is affected, and the sensitivity of the calculations to a single bit error. Considering these factors, perhaps 2% to 15% of soft errors will affect the result of a customer calculation significantly resulting in incorrect answers, system crashes, or unpredictable application behavior. For financial customers, whose success depends largely on the integrity of their data, ECC-based workstations provide dramatic improvements in data integrity. When considered in the context of down time, opportunity cost, and liability, the added benefit of superior data integrity makes a workstation with ECC memory an excellent investment for many customers. Multi-display Technology Workstations are designed to support more powerful graphics cards. These cards offer large onboard fast DDR memory, have additional graphics pipelines and engines, and support higher graphics processing unit clock speeds. Further, workstations are designed to support the additional power and cooling requirements of these cards. Personal workstations also support multiple graphics 6

7 cards especially important on the trading floor and in other financial services environments where many displays are required (see Figure 4). Figure 4. Typical trading floor where multiple monitors are required at each position. HP has over 25 years experience in providing superior graphics technology through nine generations of graphics accelerators development and across five operating systems. This Leadership Graphics Program combines HP s graphics expertise with available products to provide the industry's most expansive, fast, and flexible set of graphics solutions. A key component of the Leadership Graphics Program is a certification test suite. This test suite is distributed to graphics vendors for incorporation into their test plan, resulting in a noticeable increase in reliability and stability of industry-standard graphics products. HP works very closely with graphics vendors to ensure effective coordinated support of all graphics cards sold with HP workstations. I/O Subsystems Disk drives and interfaces Additional I/O reliability, performance, flexibility, and capacity are important to financial applications and the large files that they often manipulate. Most HP workstations allow the flexibility of a wide range of disk subsystems, ranging from low-cost Serial ATA (SATA) drives and interfaces to extremely high performance 15,000 RPM Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) drives. Workstation hard disk drives, specifically 10,000 and 15,000 RPM ( 10K and 15K respectively) hard drives, offer higher reliability in addition to improved performance. Compared to typical PC hard disks (7200 RPM SATA), these offer improved spindle motor reliability, decreased vibration susceptibility and improved data integrity, thereby offering more than twice the mean time to failure (MTTF) for data storage than PCs. For increased performance, hard drives with higher rotational speeds reduce latency and increase data transfer bandwidth well beyond the performance available on standard PC hard drives. In many cases, the use of very high performance disk subsystems has a significant benefit to application performance, and thus directly influences the productivity of the user. The chart in Figure 5 compares the performance of Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) drives to a comparable baseline SATA 7200 RPM drive using two benchmarks: 7

8 IOmeter File Server workload Intel-defined playback of disk access patterns; 80% read, 100% random. IOmeter Workstation workload similar to File Server Drive Mark, but uses only small data transfers. As shown in the benchmarks, the SCSI 15K drive is as much as 2.5x faster than the 7200 RPM drive and about 30-35% faster than the 10K drives. For those that need the best performance, regardless of cost, SCSI 15K is a great choice. Also shown is the SATA 10K drives with native command queuing (NCQ) a feature available in some drives that optimizes pending disk access requests for higher performance. Figure 5. Relative performance of different disk technologies Connectivity Workstations can manage a large number of connected devices and, in some cases, have highbandwidth buses to ensure the fastest data transfer rates. Workstations usually have a large complement of PCI slots and standard I/O ports (such as gigabit Ethernet, Firewire, and USB 2.0). Since these standard ports are often on the main system board, PCI slots are freed for other purposes such as specialized expansion cards or RAID disk controllers. Packaging and Chassis Design HP Personal Workstations differ from business desktop PCs in another important way that of chassis design. The workstation chassis must accommodate more powerful I/O cards, larger memory and disk capacities, and higher-performing (hotter) processors all in an enclosure that must meet stringent environmental requirements. Further, the workstation must be designed for security, ease of serviceability, and upgradeability. Of particular import to applications on the trading floor are the high reliability features built-in to these workstations; heat management, reliability, and ruggedness are key design goals. For example, the entire line of HP workstations is designed using sophisticated modeling tools to perform in-depth analysis of airflow within the system (see Figure 6). The CFD tools help predict unevenness in cooling 8

9 capability that could result in component overheating, or predict wasted energy caused by areas of unwanted airflow. Figure 6. Heat Flow Modeling In the Design of a New Workstation There are additional areas where HP design engineers make decisions to manage the power dissipated inside the workstation: Power regulation: Components within the power supply and on the motherboard are chosen to provide the best combination of efficiency and price. Quieter acoustics: In confined environments, reduced sound emissions are very important. Chassis design, hard disk drive vibration dampening, and smart fan technologies reduce noise levels considerably. Fans: The use of efficient fans and the strategic control of these fans assure that the fans themselves contribute as little additional heat load to the system as possible. Customer Choice in Components: HP offers a wide variety of options to make sure that the customer can choose components such as monitors and graphics cards that provide required performance without excess power dissipation. Energy Star Compliance: Reduces power consumption under idle conditions 3. Finally, HP workstations are equipped with power supplies that are large enough to handle larger workloads than that of a business PC, but are also efficient to help reduce power demand in the work environment. Operating Environments Although both a business desktop PC and a workstation are likely to run very similar (if not identical) operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows XP Professional, or Red Hat Linux, there are still particular advantages that workstations possess. 3 More information on Energy Star is available at: 9

10 Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is by far the most popular workstation operating system. Windows is the standard, with the greatest amount of mature applications ported and optimized. In addition, Microsoft Windows allows simultaneous use of standard productivity suite software along with other applications. The workstation group within HP has a dedicated Windows R&D team with over twenty years of experience that provides the foundation for enabling, testing, and supporting Windows on all HP workstation platforms. Examples of the solutions that this team has developed specifically for workstations include: A single boot on initial power-on, A recovery process set up to boot to recovery by default, A recovery process that loads all correct drivers by default, and A single point of support. HP also provides Windows OS bug fixes on preinstall and recovery media, and makes both available on the web. HP has worked closely with Microsoft throughout the development process to help ensure that the HP personal workstations most often used in financial environments the HP Workstations xw4400, xw6400, and xw8400 are Vista capable, and will meet or exceed Windows Vista technical requirements 4. Linux While most financial customers are MS Windows users, there are some situations where Linux is employed -- for example, in certain IT management environments. For those situations, HP provides a one-stop Linux solution on workstations that offers the freedom and flexibility of an open source development technology combined with the convenience of a single point of accountability. HP is a strong supporter of the Linux Standards Base and is active in strengthening the open source community through organizations such as the Open Source Development Lab, Free Standards Group, GNOME Foundation, KDE League, and Apache Foundation. The result: if your choice is Linux, HP has the products and experience to directly influence your bottom-line cost of ownership. 4 Not all Windows Vista features are available for use on all Windows Vista Capable workstations. All Windows Vista Capable workstations will run the core experiences of Windows Vista, such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability. Some features available in premium editions of Windows Vista--like the new Windows Aero user interface--require advanced or additional hardware. Check for details. 10

11 Why Choose a Workstation? Given the differences in product features, we can describe a set of reasons to choose a workstation over a high-end business desktop for financial applications. These reasons and their associated product features are described in detail in the following sections. Higher System Reliability Workstations are fitted with higher reliability technology than PCs. Features such as error checking and correcting (ECC) memory, large, efficient power supplies, and more sophisticated cooling mechanisms ensure greater expandability while maintaining high reliability. Moreover, HP workstations are designed for quick (and often toolless ) upgrades and repairs. Applications and operating environments also exhibit a higher degree of reliability on a workstation. Programs such as the graphics certification program and on-site engineers (described below) greatly enhance the reliability of the software on a workstation. Better return on investment Workstations are designed to provide the IT organization with a better return on investment through a longer life cycle. Features that provide a longer life cycle include: Greater built-in expansion room for additional memory. Workstations typically have more memory slots, and accept higher density memory, than a PC. A larger number of I/O slots. The large number of high performance I/O slots mean the workstation can support more peripherals, and can be redeployed for a longer life cycle. Processor upgradeability. In some cases, the workstations are upgradeable to higher-performance processors in-place, very effectively lengthening the useful life of the system. Toolless chassis design. The toolless chassis design means ease and flexibility of upgrading, reducing downtime. Optimized power supplies. Power supplies in workstations are optimally sized for configurations and workloads needed by Financial Services professionals. This optimization helps reduce power demand, lower ambient noise, and reduce heat emissions. Enhanced performance Workstations are designed from the ground up for performance. Multiple features come together to provide enhanced performance for demanding workstation applications: More processor cores. More processor cores provide more aggregate performance, especially with today s multitasking applications. More and faster I/O channels. Workstations support many more and higher performance I/O channels than PCs. More memory. Memory is a key requirement for running large models and increasing performance of interactive sessions. Applications Performance Tuning Framework. HP Performance Tuning Framework automatically manages graphics drivers and performs configuration optimizations to maximize performance and reliability (see below). 32- and 64-bit operating environments. A 64-bit processor allows users to generate much larger models and to manage a much greater amount of data in memory, instead of working the data back and forth to disk. With a 64-bit address space, personal workstations can efficiently utilize tens of gigabytes of physical memory instead of the four GB limitation found in many PCs. 11

12 Robust and reliable applications Certification is a critical factor that distinguishes a desktop from a workstation, and is a key reason to purchase a workstation instead of a high-end desktop. HP can offer certified application support through the power of its partnerships with IHVs (Independent Hardware Vendors) and ISVs (Independent Software Vendors). HP has excellent relationships with leading application and hardware vendors, and works closely with these vendors to ensure a high-quality, highly optimized application on HP workstations. HP engineers are often on-site at leading ISVs to ensure that their workstations will pass the most rigorous tests. For example, some application regression tests may require as many as 10,000 iterations to ensure completeness. This work has two goals the first is to ensure that an ISV s application is certified on the workstation passing a battery of tests to ensure that the possibility of any software/hardware conflicts are minimized. The second is to achieve the best application performance possible on HP Workstations. Optimization of subsystems and BIOS settings enables the compatibility of some applications and hardware solutions. All of this effort provides a high-level of assurance to the user that the application will run at top performance on the HP workstation. Remote Graphics Exclusive to HP workstations, HP Remote Graphics Software is an advanced utility that allows a user to remotely access and share a graphical workstation desktop and all of its applications and datasets using the Internet over a standard TCP/IP network. Underlying HP Remote Graphics Software is highly efficient, multiple-patented HP technology. The core of this technology is a smart digital image compression method and a rapid image processing algorithm. With this technology, users can remotely access both 2D and 3D graphics across a network, while keeping performance and image quality high and network usage to a minimum. Figure 7. The HP Remote Graphics Software facilitates disaster recovery and remote office access. 12

13 Other HP Personal Workstation Advantages While product features are an important part of the decision to buy a workstation, other important factors have a strong impact on return on IT investment. These include product reliability, tools for lifecycle management, and vendor service and support. Lifecycle Management HP has extensive experience in developing and working with partners to create software that facilitates management of an entire enterprise. This expertise is especially evident in the suite of manageability products that HP is able to provide customers. Financial customers that need to manage the entire lifecycle of their clients (see Figure 8) need a sophisticated and complete toolset. Figure 8. HP understands and helps customers manage the entire product lifecycle. HP Desktop Lifecycle Solutions (based on an integrated portfolio of solutions) assists HP customers in managing the hardware aspects of their client computers including in-depth hardware information tracking, alert monitoring, diagnostics, and driver/bios management. Preconfigured Web reports are included to help analyze, plan, and check status on management tasks. Policies can be set to automate tasks when triggered by a notification condition. The solution offers full integration with Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) and data sharing with other third-party client management tools. Service and Support HP offers industry-leading, proactive, flexible support services that enable small and medium businesses to large enterprises to have a worry-free experience not only with their HP equipment, but also with other vendors applications and products that are part of an HP solution. This ensures that businesses will stay up and running and that data will be available and protected. HP provides a support hotline that routes calls to a workstation-specific support team. This team is intimately familiar with the HP workstation product line, as well as the kinds of issues that workstation users face. As another example of innovation for customers, HP has developed a configuration and applicationtuning framework for technical workstation users who want to configure and tune their machines for optimal performance with certain third-party applications. 13

14 This framework is a utility that administrators can run on their workstations. The utility performs configuration optimizations based on a database of tuning options for specific applications. For example, some applications are able to take advantage of a feature in Windows XP that allows applications to address over 2 GB of memory the framework recognizes these applications and automatically configures the system and the application to recognize the extra memory. Customer Collaboration through Financial Advisory Council Customer partnerships are highly valued by HP. Within the financial services industry, the partnership extends to collaborating with customers to set standards for future generations of HP workstation products. To that end, HP formed Workstation Financial Advisory Councils (WFACs) in New York City, London, and in Europe, and is extending its partnerships to customers in Asia. These council meetings, launched on December of 2002 in Manhattan, are held quarterly and join key financial customers with executive R&D and marketing management from HP s Workstation Global Business Unit (WGBU). The WFAC meetings and associated communication forums (the only community of its kind in the industry) promote in-depth discussions of the future of HP s workstation portfolio, evolving trends, business drivers, and product requirements of the financial services community. This process also ensures continued satisfaction of financial services customers and provides a feedback forum for other technology discussions. Popular HP Workstations in the Financial Services Industry HP is the acknowledged leader in providing workstations to the financial services industry 5. International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that in Q1 2006, HP delivered 49% of the Personal Workstation Desktop units in this market outpacing the unit sales of the next two vendors combined. HP has been the unit market leader in Personal Workstation sales in the financial services industry since Q Three of the major reasons for this market share leadership are a strong collaboration with financial services customers, HP innovative product design, and creative use of the workstation technology behind the products. Figure 9 below shows recommended HP workstation configurations for several types of financial services applications. 5 IDC WW/Regional Workstation Tracker, May,

15 Figure 9. Popular HP Workstations for Financial Market Professionals HP Workstation xw4400 The HP xw4400 Workstation is an excellent price/performance value, providing significant performance while reducing typical power consumption. Featuring new Intel Core 2 Duo processors, the IHV-certified HP xw4400 is available with a range of graphics, memory, and storage choices. It is all delivered in a quiet, tool-less access chassis, which is easy to use, service, and upgrade. Intel s next generation, high-end performance chipset for Intel processors delivers fast, dual channel DDR2 667 MHz memory, PCI Express x16 graphics, integrated Serial ATA controller with RAID 0/1/5/10 capability, and EM64T 64-bit technology. The HP xw4400 s versatile, convertible minitower chassis allows you to use the workstation as a deskside solution on the floor or in a desktop configuration. The chassis is very easy to convert from one configuration to the other and the workstation can be ordered in either orientation. The HP xw4400 s tool-less access chassis design is efficient, open, quiet, easy to maintain, service, and upgrade. HP Workstation xw6400 The HP xw6400 is a mid-range workstation that is an ideal solution for space- and power-constrained environments. The HP xw6400 delivers one or two dual-core Intel Xeon Processors for high performance and low power consumption. The xw6400 workstation supports 1,333 MHz dual system bus, and a 4 channel 667 MHz fully buffered DIMM (FBDIMM) memory subsystem, providing substantial improvement in throughput over previous Intel chipset technology. It supports up to three internal hard disk drives, two optical disks, four PCI Express I/O slots, and two legacy PCI slots. With one of the smallest dual-processor form factors in the industry, the HP xw6400 Workstation fits neatly into the space-constrained workspaces of the financial services industry, including trading floors and remote offices. Industry-leading, tool-less chassis design reduces downtime during move, adds, and changes. 15

16 Financial applications in banking and financial trading require high processing power to manage a large number of simultaneous transactions, and benefit from the multiprocessor, multi-core configurations available with the xw6400. The HP xw6400 supports up to eight monitors, allowing visualization of huge amounts of data from multiple sources with less need to toggle between applications. Strong relationships with application providers and graphics card vendors ensure reliable, industry standard, solutions tailored for the financial services industry. HP Workstation xw8400 The HP xw8400 delivers the latest 64-bit Intel Dual-Core Intel Xeon architecture for great personal workstation performance and expandability. Intel's next-generation chipset provides substantial improvements in bandwidth over previous Intel chipset technology. Supporting up to 5 internal hard drives, three optical disks, three PCI Express I/O slots, three PCI-X, and one legacy PCI slot, the HP xw8400 provides the hard disk space, I/O expandability, and performance needed in the most demanding work environments. With 8 slots for memory expandability, the HP xw8400 is designed to allow the maximum memory configuration supported by the Intel 5000X chipset 64 GB 6. Analytic financial applications such as algorithmic trading require high processing power (a large number of smaller jobs), and benefit from the multiprocessor configuration of the xw8400 to drive multiple applications simultaneously. The multiple display capability of the xw8400 also works well in financial applications where support or many (four or more) displays is needed. 6 The 64GB configuration requires 8GB DIMMs, which are not currently available. 16

17 Conclusion The best reason to buy a workstation is to improve productivity and increase return on investment. The differences between a workstation and a business desktop PC discussed in this paper explain why a workstation can deliver these value to businesses in the Financial Services Industry. The differences between the products yield the following reasons to choose a workstation: Higher system reliability allowing maximum user productivity. Increased data integrity ensuring safe, secure transactions for increased profitability. Improved application and system configuration stability for configuration continuity. Enhanced system performance for better application performance and more timely access to application and market data. Support for up to 8 displays per workstation to maximize application-viewing space and increase user comfort. HP and HP workstations are particularly well suited for addressing the challenges presented by the financial services industry. HP workstation technology provides the highest levels of performance, reliability, and availability while maintaining industry-leading price/performance. In addition, HP s application and operating system testing and certification, best-in-class graphics, and electromechanical packaging all contribute to an excellent solution for financial applications. HP complements workstation technology with business benefits, including additional levels of support, a valuable customer advisory council, and dedicated applications support teams. Lastly, investing in HP workstations is an investment in future productivity. HP continues to lead the industry in research in workstation technology related to financial market segments, including R&D projects to develop more compact and powerful systems, and remote graphics technology that will reshape the way IT resources are deployed in financial environments. 17

18 For more information Useful URLs Information about HP personal workstations: Description about HP s Remote Graphics Software for remote workstation access: Description of HP s workstation solutions for the Financial Services industry: Specifications for HP s xw6400 workstations, designed specifically for the needs of the Financial Services Professional: Specification for HP s xw4400 entry workstation Specification for HP s xw8400 high-end workstation 18

19 HP Offices and Contact Information For the HP sales office nearest you, please refer to your local phone directory, or call the HP regional office listed below. Corporate and North American Headquarters Hewlett-Packard 3000 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA Phone: (650) Fax: (650) Regional Headquarters Latin America Hewlett-Packard Waterford Building, 9th Floor 5200 Blue Lagoon Drive Miami, Florida USA Phone: (305) Europe, Africa, Middle East Hewlett-Packard Route du Nant-d Avril 150 CH-1217 Meyrin 2 Geneva, Switzerland Phone: (41 22) Asia Pacific Hewlett Packard Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. 138, Depot Road 5th floor Singapore Phone: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Windows, Windows Vista and the Windows logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries EN, 09/2006