Linux is growing out of Unix's shadow and handling mission-critical tasks on its own. Checkout its role at the NSE. THE Nati onal Stoc k Ex change (NSE) was one of the fi rst ex changes in the countr y to introduce instruments such as derivatives (which are similar to equity) where you trade in futures and options. NSE had a Unix-based system in place for equity trading, but felt the need for a more cost- effective risk management solution for its derivatives segment. The team working on the pro ject had to consi der various issues. Real -time through put was requ ired to anal yse trad e risk factors. The team also had to ensure that the system wouldn't collapse under high loads. Linear scalability was another key issue. Says G M Shenoy, senior vice president of NSE.IT, "NSE was looking at large amounts ofcomputation. There were more than 1,000 trading members and over 200 clearing members. Initially we were looking at around 50 trades per second, which would mean 100 value at risk(VAR-a term for risk anal ys is that has been defi ned and appr ov ed by ec onomists) computatio ns/second. Parallelism was the only answer." After considering various opt ions, it was decided to go for a Linux cluster computing solution, initia lly on an exp eri men tal bas is. The dev elo pment team dec ided to use a clu ster ofinexpensive Linux-based machines powered by Intel processors, and use MPIS (message passing interface standard) for clustering infrastructure, with a switched Ethernet 100 Mbps network. It was decided to use multiprocessor hardware to handle non-parallel components such as data sharing. Dur ing thi s exp erimen tal perio d, R&D was con duc ted on the pla tfo rm to asc ert ain the robustness of the system and to demonstrate the use of Linux for a real business application req uiri ng hi gh- le ve l fl oating point co mp utations at hi gh per fo rmance lev els . The concept worked. From there on it was a matter of fine-tuning and putting it into production.
