The snail`s pace at which exchange controls are being relaxed, and the daily reports of skills and money leaving South Africa don`t seem to be affecting business being done in dealing rooms. This is reflected by the fact that Computer Configurations has supplied hardware to the tune of more than R1 million in recent months to banks and investment houses, among them Investec Asset Management."Scalability has become a critical factor in this sector, as South African dealing rooms participate in international share markets and feel the pressure of outside investment companies looking to set up a presence in South Africa," observes CCH sales director Anne Tissiman.Pressure is being brought to bear on IT managers in these sectors to prepare for future growth which, in the short term, is difficult to estimate.Investec Asset Management recently replaced its HP 9000 server with a Corollary SMP system and installed an Orca disk array, both supplied by the Cape Town branch of Computer Configurations, a company in JSE-listed Computer Configurations Holding. The need for the upgrade was driven by the bottleneck experienced during end-of-day procedures, when non-vital processing had to be put off until all urgent tasks were completed.Fault tolerance was another important factor behind Investec Asset Management`s decision to use Corollary, says IT manager Lyle van Muylwyk. "Using a rack-mounted server gave us redundant hot-swappable power supplies and extra cooling. The Orca disk array gives us better I/O throughput and hot-swappable disks."Now that South Africa is becoming a global player on the share markets, the pressure on IT planning is increasing, Van Muylwyk points out. "We have to cope with such factors as dual listing on African stock exchanges, international trade, and the relaxing of exchange control regulations. Pressure on local investment houses to compete successfully against international companies will all place new requirements on information technologists to produce better, faster, more powerful and more cost-efficient systems."Corollary fitted our requirements," Van Muylwyk concludes. "Their technology is scalable, fault-tolerant, flexible in its ability to handle multiple applications, and most importantly, it is supported by skilled engineers."
Share
