02-07-2013, 04:24 PM
A Cloud Computing based Real Time Financial System
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Abstract
The “Cloud Computing” is becoming an
increasingly popular term. The new “XaaS” category
of services introduced will slowly replace many types
of computational resources currently used. In this
perspective, grid computing, the basic element for the
large scale supply of cloud services, will play a
fundamental role in defining how those services will be
provided.
This paper is concerned with the study and
preliminary design of a real time financial system
based on cloud computing technologies that enable
macroeconomic analysis and forecasts of the financial
markets and their instruments. Cloud and Grid
paradigms can generate different added values which
are examined in detail in the paper.
This work utilises the results obtained during the
Cybersar Project managed by the COSMOLAB
Consortium (Italy). The system analyzed and described
herein will be implemented in the Cybersar
Computational Grid by autumn 2009.
Introduction
IBM and Google [1][2][3] have conceived a new
computational paradigm, called Cloud Computing,
which will allow the companies involved in promoting
its popularity to open the doors to Web 3.0. Cloud
computing is thought by some to be an innovative term,
recently introduced by the media. But behind this
poetic name probably lies one of the most important
new technologies in the ICT area. The first to give
prominence to the term cloud computing (and maybe to
coin it) was Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, in late 2006.
The term refers to an important and long-term trend:
computing over the Internet [4].
Conceptual Keys to Cloud Architecture
In order to introduce cloud computing architecture [10]
it is assumed that hardware and software services are
essentially stored on the web servers, the “clouds”,
rather than spread over the single computers connected
in Internet.
The scenario is that of a user having a device (be it a
PC, PDA, Smartphone or some future device), a
browser and an Internet connection, who can access the
right cloud which provides the user with the services
and/or data he/she requires. These services will often
be tailored to user needs.
Financial Primary Server
From an architectural standpoint, the FPS will
consist of a series of interconnected computers. For the
time being, the single functions and types of devices to
be used for implementation will not be described in
detail here but the FPS functionalities/modularities can
be summarized as follows:
Real time Quotation Gateway: this program
communicates through the Financial Data Centre
API to request/receive data and information. The
same program will forward these data to the
clients.
Broker Analyses/Forecasts: this program
receives from the Quotation Gateway both real
time data, useful for market analysis and forecasts
of a general nature, and the analysis/forecast
requests from clients for a particular financial
instrument.
The Clients
Considering the well-acclaimed research results
achieved in grid and cloud computing, it is envisaged
that these technologies will be developed for gridbased
financial systems, a real possibility in the future.
For this reason it is not easy to define a precise target
user for the system at the present time. It could be a
company LAN, or a financial investors network spread
over the country, or web users who want a support tool
for on line trading. However in this case, clients will
simply be automated “testers” for studying the
performance of the system interacting with the grid.
Conclusion
The development of the described system involves a
number of stages. At the present stage, the feasibility
study has been completed, as well as the high level
design (largely described herein) and the detailed
design of some significant aspects mentioned in the
paper, for example the use of an instruction set to
interact with the WMS grid. All those aspects not
covered in the paper such as security, authentication
etc, are of secondary importance for the project’s scope
and for this reason are not dealt with here, also
considering that they are well-known, standardized and
easily usable.