Network Allies Blog Application-Ready IBM® Financial Platforms

Network Allies, a leader in application-specific computing solutions, BittWare, a top COTS FPGA board manufacturer, and IBM® have collaborated to provide application-ready server platforms specifically designed for Financial Acceleration and High Frequency Trading (HFT) applications. With high frequency trades being executed in microseconds, the ability to minimize the delay between market data arrival and issuing the trade is critical. These applications require ultra-low latency feed handling as well as ever-faster analysis/data correlation.BittWare's ultra-low latency hardware is based on the industry-leading Altera Stratix® V FPGA and provides CPU offload, the highest performance transceivers, and available TOE (TCP/IP Offload Engine) and Financial IP. With maximum processing performance per watt to minimize energy and thermal requirements and 10GigE straight to the FPGA (no conversion to XAUI) for ultra-low latency, BittWare's PCIe boards are ideal for applications in the financial acceleration/HFT market.The Open Computing Language (OpenCL ) programming model is now supported on Altera's Stratix® V FPGA architecture and BittWare's Stratix V FPGA COTS hardware, providing an incredibly powerful solution for system acceleration. OpenCL dramatically simplifies FPGA development by enabling designers to code their systems and algorithms in a high-level C-based framework. This gives developers access to the latest generation of high-performance FPGAs on a validated COTS PCI Express board, while also significantly reducing their time-to-market by using OpenCL kernels to target Altera FPGAs.IBM® System x® servers offer the outstanding balance of uptime, performance, flexibility, density and cost efficiency for mission-critical applications - including more I/O, more memory capacity, and new value-on-demand to allow you to add features or keep your costs low. IBM® System x® servers are equipped with the scalable performance and advanced reliability of Intel® Xeon® series processors, and support Microsoft® Windows® and Linux operating systems and VMware® virtualization.Key features include:Up to two BittWare full- or half-size Stratix® V PCIe boardsUp to four Altera Stratix® V FPGAsOpenCL Programming SupportedFinancial Acceleration IP (from BittWare partners)Up to eight 40GigE or thirty-two 10GigE interfaces2U IBM® System x® rackmount serverUp to two 8-core Intel® Xeon® processorsSixteen 2.5" or six 3.5" HDDs or thirty-two 1.8" SSDsUp to 768 GB of memoryMicrosoft® Windows® or Linux OSBittWare PCle Board features include:Support of Altera's SDK for OpenCL (S5PHQ)Multiple 10GigE connections straight to the FPGA: no separate PHYs for lowest possible latencyFull support for PCI Express Gen 3 (x8 PCIe lanes)QDRII/II+ SRAM for lowest latency, DDR3 SDRAM for bulk storage, RLDRAM3 for low latency and storageBuilt-in support for 40GigEAvailable TOE (TCP/IP Offload Engine) and Financial IPFully validated, enterprise class, deployable boardsIBM® Server SpecificationsChasis:2U rackmount (IBM® System x® model)Two PCIe 3.0 x16 expansion slotsProcessor:Up to two Intel® Xeon® series 8-core processorsIntegrated PCIe 3.0 in the processor for lower latency and power20MB L3 cache per processor socketMemory:Up to 768GB of memory24 DIMM sockets of DDR3 UDIMM/RDIMM/LRDIMM/ HyberCloud DIMMDisk Drives and Internal Storage:Sixteen 2.5" or six 3.5" HDDs or thirty two 1.8" SSDsMax internal storage, up to 16TB (2.5" model) or 18TB (3.5" model) SAS/SATARAID Support:RAID 0, 1, 10 with integrated IBM ServeRAID M5110e on the motherboard (6 Gbps)Optional RAID-5, -50 or -6, -60Operating Systems:Microsoft® Windows®Linux distributionsVMware® virtualizationBoard Options:S5PH-Q: Stratix V GX/GS x8 PCIe half-size card with QDRII/II+, DDR3, dual QSFP+/SFP+, and optional Anemone co-processor, OpenCL supportedS5PE: Stratix V GX/GS x8 PCIe card with DDR3, dual QSFP+/SFP+, and expansion site for Anemone co-processorsS5PE-F: Stratix V GX/GS x8 PCIe card with RLDRAM3, DDR3, QDRII+, VITA-57 FMC site or quad SFP+, and expansion site for Anemone co-processorsS5PE-DS: Dual Stratix V GX/GS x8 PCIe card with RLDRAM3, DDR3, QDRII+, quad QSFP+/SFP+, and optional Anemone co-processorDevelopment Tools:BittWorks II Toolkit - host, command, and debug tools for BittWare hardwareATLANTiS FrameWork - FPGA framework for BittWare Stratix V boardsAltera Quartus II tools for Stratix® V FPGAsFinancial Acceleration IP from BittWare Partners:Ultra Low Latency TOE, UOE, and MAC (LeWiz Communications, Enyx, Fraunhofer HHI, Intilop)Low Latency PCIe (Lancero)High Bandwidth PCIe, RLDRAM3 (Northwest Logic)Book Building IP, Order Management IP (Enyx)Market Data Feed Handler and Custom Services (Insight Design Labs, Enyx)About Network AlliesNetwork Allies is an IBM® Business Partner and Industry Solution Integrator (ISI) that helps Industry Solutions Resellers (ISRs) develop integrated products and solutions based on IBM® technology and bring these solutions to market quickly and cost-effectively. As an ISI, Network Allies provides ISRs with IBM® products and services, including hardware, testing, integration, supply chain management and product lifecycle management.