PC- Build for running MISSION CRITICAL trading application

[quanttrade99z]

Build for running MISSION CRITICAL trading application

Hello all

I?ve been running a futures trading system on an old PC now for sometime (6 years old!). I always thought that the application wasn?t too demanding and that I wouldn?t benefit too much from a new PC. Anyway, I guess it is time for me to build a new one.
The application pulls in a lot of real-time financial price data, and then has to submit/change orders.

The absolute goal is stability.
Should I buy a DELL PRECISION? Or build one?
Can my home build be as stable as DELL PRECISION?

Second goal is speed, so that my trades can be submitted as quickly as possible.

Budget is unlimited, but I don?t want to waste any money. I was thinking single processor because this would make that single application faster? Or should I go for dual/quad because then the computer background processes won?t impact the application?

Please recommend the best processor, motherboard, ram for me.

Here are the stated minimum requirements (which I would like to VASTLY exceed):

Item Minimum Requirement
Processor 3 GHz P IV PC or equivalent
Hard Disk Drives 50MB Free HDD Space
RAM 2 Gb


Thanks! I appreciate all of your help!
Quanttrade99z

 

[aigomorla]

Mission Critical = if you never built one b4, buy a dell.

Also:

"Budget is unlimited, but I don?t want to waste any money. I was thinking single processor because this would make that single application faster?"

Get an Optiplex instead. Those are more business geared. Im assuming you'll do little to 0 gaming on this machine?

 

[Somniferum]

Have to agree, if it's mission critical and money is no object, why take any chances? Building your own PC is for enthusiasts and gamers. It's not going to save you much money these days (if any), and there's always a chance you'll get a defective part which can be a huge pain to troubleshoot. If you can't afford downtime, then you want to know you have 24/7 support. Mission critical also means no overclocking, which is half the fun of building a system anyway.

 

[sonoran]

You don't want a PC, you want a SERVER - specifically one designed with RAS features in mind. Redundant power supplies, onboard hardware monitoring, RAID level 5 disk array (or SAN). You should also be asking yourself, what if this system goes completely belly up? Do you have a cluster setup for automatic failover, or at least a hot standby (that you can bring online within minutes)? You should also have a vendor support contract that guarantees you onsite parts replacement within hours of failure. Ensuring high system availability is a nontrivial exercise.

You talk like this system is critical, but I get the impression you don't behave like it is? Unless I got the wrong impression, you may want to think about the discrepancy between the two.

I can't say how they compare to other systems, but our Dell DL380 systems (rack mounted, in a climate controlled server room) have been pretty reliable. We've had a component or two go bad over the past few years (out of a few dozen servers), but with the hardware monitoring we were, more often that not, able to replace the parts before they brought the systems down. You may want to look at DL380 G4's or G5's.

As for processors, I recommend going dual core at a minimum. It makes a big difference in system (CPU) availability when background processes kick in. If I/O throughput is an issue - I've seen our SANs run 10x the I/O per second that a local hard disk can achieve.

 

[mooseracing]

This thread is funny.


Just buy a dual core tower. What speed do you really need? Are you using a web browser for your transactions? Or is it all over the web?

 

[Acanthus]

For trading all you will really need is a dual core tower with 3 gigs of memory. If you use dual displays make sure you get a graphics card that supports dual displays. Just back up any critical data to a DVD every once in a while and if its very critical store the DVD-Rs in a fireproof safe.

For stability i would definately buy a Dell over building for the 1st time.

You mentioned "single processor" which i think you may have meant single core. Current generation processors are all dual core or greater (except for the very bottom of the barrel) and the individual cores are faster than any single core processor anyway.

My personal reccomendation for you would be a E7200 processor based PC. It shouldnt set you back more than $900.

 

[heyheybooboo]

HP or Dell server with ECC ram, redundancy and backup power.

I'm not seeing the need for a 2p system but it may work for you if your crunching is serious (and multithreaded)

Look for AMD Opty 1222 or Intel Xeon 5160 dual-cores at 3GHz in 1p systems

 

[NXIL]

HP or Dell server with ECC ram, redundancy and backup power.

100%+ agree with HHBB above. And, to parse some other comments, maybe what he wants/needs is a workstation, which I think of as a personal use server.

Here is one from HP, dual CPU capable, but OK with just one, ECC ram, 24/7 4 hours on site service (for mission critical work):

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dsto...9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=

From Dell, one of their lower end workstations:

http://configure.us.dell.com/d...&l=en&oc=MLB1224&s=biz

In front of your mission critical PC: an uninterruptable power supply, something from APC probably, like one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...1303%2CN82E16842101125

Note: the more expensive UPS units have more advanced power clean up circuits, etc....they clean up the power signal before they pass the juice on to the PC.

And, backup: on line backup? With a six year old system, guess you have been backing up carefully....tape backup? Might be a good idea to think about that carefully, and have a plan, i.e. your PC gets stolen, flood, earthquake, fire, etc--do you have off site data so that you can restore everything and be back up and running quickly?

HTH

NXIL

 

[quanttrade99z]

I want to thank you all for your responses, they have been so helpful! All of them have given me good things to think about.

I think I am going to buy a DELL WORKSTATION.
I spec-ed it out, it is about $2700.
Here is what I chose. Any advice?
Processor fast enough?
Any waste?
Any thing to improve?

Thanks again!!!
Dell Precision T5400




Date 7/10/2008 8:11:34 PM Central Standard Time

Catalog Number 4 Retail 04



Catalog Number / Description Product Code Qty SKU Id



Dell Precision Workstation T5400:
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5420 (2.50GHz, 2X6M L2,1333) T525 1 [223-4595] 1


Operating System:
Genuine Windows Vista® Business Bonus-Windows® XP Professional loaded XP3VBDP 1 [467-4318] 11


Hardware Support Services:
3 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business Day On-Site Service Q3YOS 1 [984-8020][988-8377][988-8388][984-1382][991-2878] 29


Graphic Cards:
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable NV290 1 [320-5864] 6


Chassis Configuration and 1394:
Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration MT 1 [313-5871] 15


Memory:
4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) 4G4E6 1 [311-7681] 3


CD-ROM, DVD, and Read-Write Devices:
16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD? and Roxio Creator? Dell Ed DVRW16 1 [313-5709][420-7980][420-8857] 16


Hard Drive Configuration:
C1 All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 drive total configuration SATA1 1 [341-5335] 9


Boot Hard Drive:
500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s,7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache? 500ST 1 [341-5355] 8


Monitors:
No Monitor NMN 1 [320-3316] 5


Resource DVD:
Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers RDVD 1 [313-5659] 21


Labels:
Vista Premium Sticker VPDGRD 1 [310-9161] 750


Keyboard:
USB Entry Quietkey, No Hot Keys U 1 [310-7949] 4


Mouse:
Dell USB 2-Button Mechanical Mouse with Scroll ELD 1 [310-7959] 12


Floppy Drive and Media Card Reader Options:
No Floppy Drive NFD 1 [341-3429] 10


Speakers:
No Speaker option NSPKR 1 [313-2663] 18


Installation Services:
No Onsite System Setup NOINSTL 1 [900-9987] 32

 

[aigomorla]

good choice!

 

[NXIL]

Dude, that looks great.

One suggestion: make sure they send you the real operating system disks, ie. XP/Vista--those come in handy. (Or, I guess there is some way to burn the OS disk off the hidden partition on the hard drive...anyway, have your OS disks safe and handy).

Looks great, that is going to be a great machine to work with!

NXIL

 

[faxon]

only thing i would change is set up some sort of redundant raid array within the workstation as well for data backups, so that if one of your hard disks fails your system can be restored in a few hours and you dont loose any of your data. other than that it looks fine. if the work you are doing now is running okay enough on a 6 year old PC it probably isnt CPU bound, so you dont need the best of the best of CPUs, but if you find you need a faster one, the board has a 1333mhz FSB so chances are it will take one of intels faster cores as well. all in all you're in good shape though otherwise.

 

[Arglebargle]

Be sure and buy it as a business computer and get the business support contract. The level of tech support you will be able to get will be much different (better) than the consumer variety.

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: Arglebargle
Be sure and buy it as a business computer and get the business support contract. The level of tech support you will be able to get will be much different (better) than the consumer variety.

that is wise as hell! If it's very very critical you need to get some sort of fail safe fall back system as well.

 

[Davegod]

I'm still not clear about exactly what the PC requirements are - I expect you could get a system for 1/3 the price and still be overpowered, but what the hell, it'll be more satisfying and probably last longer than a cheaper system anyway.

Regardless, I'm going to assume you want an UPS, even if it's just a cheapish one that basically gives you 15mins warning. Bear in mind that's a powerful PC you have there so tak to Dell about which one to get.

You definitely want some backup systems in place. Again it's not clear how your software works so it's difficult to recommend a system. If pretty much all the data is online and you dont actually need to save anything unique, a USB flash stick will probably do. On the other hand...

If your computer holds data that must not be lost, you should get quite serious about backups. The main options are an external hard drive, USB flash stick, burning DVD's or online storage.

USB flash sticks are underrated - while they are the worst for reliability, the fail in any backup system is nearly always the user and USB sticks are easily the most convenient. People tend to be much better at remembering to use them and, crucially, store them on a keyring - away from the PC. Good online storage can also be "fire and forget", once it's set up you can forget about it until you need it. iDrive got quite a good review from a fairly trusted reviewer.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: faxon
only thing i would change is set up some sort of redundant raid array within the workstation as well for data backups, so that if one of your hard disks fails your system can be restored in a few hours and you dont loose any of your data. other than that it looks fine. if the work you are doing now is running okay enough on a 6 year old PC it probably isnt CPU bound, so you dont need the best of the best of CPUs, but if you find you need a faster one, the board has a 1333mhz FSB so chances are it will take one of intels faster cores as well. all in all you're in good shape though otherwise.

good point... you mentioned you need only 50MB... that is NOTHING!
single drives for under 200$ get 1,000,000 MB today (1000000MB =1000GB = 1TB).
So a mirror array is best for you, nothing provides the level of reliability of mirror. The only reason to use RAID5 over mirror is if you need to store really large amounts of data, so you sacrifice speed and reliability compared to raid1 to save on drive costs.
Since your drive costs are going to be minimal, raid1 is the way to go. (it actually might come out cheaper since RAID5 is a dedicated controller with at least 3 drives, raid1 is just 2+ identical drives and a motherboard).


Also, if it is such a mission critical system... and speed is so important. How come it is a 6 years old box and is apparently maintained by you, a person who is obviously not an IT.

If you do have an IT who handles it.. for god's sake please PLEASE consult him on the purchase! don't just drop a new computer in his lap and say "here, I bought this, please use it". (I had that happen way too many times, and it is always ends in money wasted for the employer)

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: taltamir

If you do have an IT who handles it.. for god's sake please PLEASE consult him on the purchase! don't just drop a new computer in his lap and say "here, I bought this, please use it". (I had that happen way too many times, and it is always ends in money wasted for the employer)

ROFLMAO

Taltamir, this is the BEST ADVICE on this post so far.

I cant believe it was so late.!


However i dont think he has an IT if he was gonna build it himself.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: taltamir
Also, if it is such a mission critical system... and speed is so important. How come it is a 6 years old box and is apparently maintained by you, a person who is obviously not an IT.

As Jon Stewart of the Daily Show would say:

"No disrespect, I'm just saying, anytime I see a thread containing the words "mission critical" I assume the author really doesn't have an idea of what mission critical really means beyond it being a fancy catchphrase that seems to command attention when thrown around at the neighborhood's block party (hey baby, I do mission critical futures trading, oh yeah, giggidy giggidy), no disrespect, I'm just saying."

But I think it was more politely stated above when mooseracing posted "This thread is funny". That about summed it up.

 

[Abwx]

Operating System:
Genuine Windows Vista® Business Bonus-Windows® XP Professional loaded XP3VBDP 1 [467-4318] 11

Graphic Cards:
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable NV290 1 [320-5864] 6

The OS is outdated as well as the ridiculous and obsolete video
card that has only 2 monitors capability.

Think about it , when trading more than two screens are needed ,
i use 4 and i m no profesionnal of the markets.....

You dont need a low end Quadro video card that you wont use
for CAD , but rather a 6 monitors capable item.

All this for 2700$...

 

[BLaber]

I would stay far away from any display card named Nvidia NVS series when it comes to mission critical work.

 

[podspi]

Ah, the difference that four years makes...

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Spammer spamed

 

[jvroig]

Necroed by spammer, I'm locking this for the sake of members who seem unable to determine that a thread is already years old, despite the abundance of solid hints such as old operating systems and hardware.

Moderator jvroig