Sybase’s Risk Analytics solution melds Sybase’s lighting-fast IQ analytic database server with certain components of its PowerDesigner modeling tool. The heart of the system is an IQ-driven data model tailored specifically for capital markets.
The model comes with around a dozen standard queries commonly used by traders – things like average moving lists and adjusted prices.
The solution also includes the physical architect portion of Sybase’s PowerDesigner tool which lets developers manipulate the model for more custom needs.
Increasing the velocity and volume of profitable trades is the key driver for Risk Analytics. At a technical level, IQ uses a column-based approach which Sybase claims offers a magnitude of performance 100 times greater than conventional relational database systems. Sybase also says IQ’s column-based architecture reduces the volume of data stored by up to 70%.
Sybase says the inherent performance and scalability of the IQ engine has allowed it to develop a an integrated risk and trade data analytic repository that is equipped to handle high volume real-time data feeds and large historical data sets concurrently.
The margins that financial institutions make on selling stocks, bonds and derivates is very low, said Ian Waterford, director of the financial solutions group at Dublin, California-based Sybase, told ComputerWire. Our Risk Analytics software maximizes the return on the execution of trade volumes by running it as a black-box using proven algorithmic models.
Waterford also added that the explosion of data now available to brokerage firms (up to 120% according to industry stats) means there is a need to pull all the different information types into a single repository.
We’re seeing an explosion of trade data flying across the enterprise, he said. To run a black- box trading model efficiently you need to analyze real-time and historical data very quickly in a single view.
We provide a fast data repository for algorithms to run on top of that allows financial institutions to make better trades faster based on a richer set of information, Waterford said.
The move underscores Sybase’s strength in the financial services software market. The company boasts that its data management software handles over 60% of financial trading transactions globally. Sybase’s Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database is already deeply entrenched among financial services firms. Current IQ financial services customers include CitiGroup, Millennium Partners, ITG and eSpeed
Risk Analytics is specifically designed to support capital markets and trading applications, which represent the biggest market for our software in the financial services space, Waterford pointed out.
Risk Analytics is offered in two versions: a development and testing version (for developers, ISVs and partners), which starts at $14,250; and a full enterprise deployment version, which costs $47,500 per CPU.
