Case Study
Wanlian Securities
State-owned securities company achieves continuous availability of its core trading system with the STRATUS® ftServer® platform
Incorporated in 2001 upon approval of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), Wanlian Securities Co., Ltd. is a wholly state-owned company funded by powerful state-owned asset management companies and investment firms. With its strong registered capital, the company is the first standardized securities firm in Guangdong province. Its business scope spans securities brokerage, securities investment consulting, securities trading, securities investment activities related to financial advisers, securities underwriting and sponsors, and proprietary trading in securities. Headquartered in Guangzhou, Wanlian Securities has established a growing network of more than 60 business outlets across South China.
The challenge
Wanlian Securities provides a wide range of individual and institutional financial services, including securities margin trading, securities brokerage, securities investment fund sales, agency share transfer, and consignment of financial products, which rely on real-time financial data and transactions. As China’s regulators tighten their supervision of trading systems, requirements for system operation, performance, and maintenance are becoming increasingly stringent. These strict regulations, combined with a strong commitment to providing exceptional customer service, led Wanlian Securities to rethink their approach to system availability. After all, even a brief interruption in trading system availability could result in significant financial losses for thousands of customers.
As part of its core trading system, Wanlian Securities uses an Offer Interface Warehouse (OIW) interface library architecture to enable offer trading with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. With the emergency switching solutions the company had in place, the OIW interface library application needed to be manually switched to the backup server in the event of a hardware failure. This complex switching operation could take five minutes or more to complete, during which time Wanlian Securities personnel would be unable to conduct stock trading. To eliminate single points of failure (SPOF) in the hardware architecture, the company decided to deploy a fault-tolerant server to achieve high availability of the OIW interface library application for always-on trading and superior customer service.
The solution
Wanlian Securities evaluated various software- and hardware-based high availability solutions, conducting detailed tests and comparisons to determine which option would best meet its performance requirements. Following an in-depth assessment process, the company selected the Stratus ftServer system, a fault-tolerant platform that provides an open architecture of sustainable high availability. Compared to software-based high availability solutions, ftServer offers easy installation, simple configuration and management, and more cost-effective maintenance. Based on these advantages, Wanlian Securities decided to deploy its core trading system on an ftServer 2800 systems running Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 located in the central data center at its Guangzhou headquarters.
Leveraging state-of-the art Intel® processor technology, ftServer provides continuous application availability with advanced lockstep technology and real-time management and monitoring. Mirrored hardware components process the same instructions in “lockstep”—at the same exact time. In the event of a hardware malfunction, the mirrored component continues processing without interruption. ftServer presents and manages replicated components as a single system image so applications run without modification and only one copy of software is required. Furthermore, ftServer’s hot-swappable customer replacement units (CRUs) are easily replaced— without need for user intervention, special tools, or system downtime—for optimal serviceability.
“Stratus ftServer system is the ideal high availability solution for the securities industry, where there is zero tolerance for transaction processing downtime or data loss. This fault-tolerant platform has delivered continuous availability to meet the stringent reliability requirements of the CSRC, company leadership, and our operations and maintenance staff, while providing customers with a fast, secure, and always-on trading system.”
Yu Bin
Deputy Director of Centralized Trading,
Operations Information Technology Center, Wanlian Securities
The results
Since deploying the ftServer systems in 2016, Wanlian Securities has enjoyed continuous availability of its OIW interface library application, enabling the company to conduct trading with the Shanghai Stock Exchange on behalf of clients quickly and seamlessly. The ftServer system has eliminated SPOFs within the core trading system to achieve fast, reliable transaction processing—with zero application downtime and zero data loss—for 99.999% availability. In addition, ftServer has delivered on its promise of simple installation, configuration, and management, as well as hassle-free serviceability, to provide low cost of ownership.
The ftServer system has enabled Wanlian Securities to meet rigorous CSRC requirements for trading system availability while minimizing customer risk of financial losses due to system downtime. As a result, the company has successfully enhanced customer loyalty and strengthened its reputation within China’s financial services market.
