To anyone interested in finance, FT.com's Web site--one of the busiest in Europe--is a vital resource. It contains huge amounts of content, ranging from Webcasts to Investors Chronicle online, as well as material from the Financial Times, one of the world's great business papers.

The first steps in integration of the original start-up systems have recently been completed with the implementation of a new dramatically improved network based on Sun EnterpriseTM 10000 Servers. This flexible and scalable environment will contribute substantially to an estimated saving of two million dollars a year.

In addition, the flexible domains offered by the Sun Enterprise 10000 Servers allow processor resources to be shared between applications. This means the new environment will be used to link FT.com more closely to the Financial Times itself.

The legacy system comprised more than 60 servers of various types, lacked cost effectiveness and did not provide the necessary levels of resilience and recovery. According to Chief Technology Officer Ian Cohen, scalability was a major issue. Every new project required a detailed assessment of the infrastructure and ultimately resulted in increased complexity, which constrained growth.

The solution included the introduction of network-attached storage to create a resilient environment where processing could be shared between FT.com and the Financial Times. The configuration included two Sun Enterprise 10000 Servers fitted with 64 processor modules and 20 Sun EnterpriseTM 450 Servers (12 in the U.K. and eight in the U.S.) operating as front-end Web servers.

Server hosting of the Sun Enterprise 10000 Servers is shared between strategic partner Digital Island and the newspaper, connected physically via a dark fibre link. The operating environment is SolarisTM 8 Operating Environment (Solaris OE) with Oracle providing the database software and Open Market used for content management. The implementation also involved the Sun Professional ServicesSM Program, and all live servers receive SunSpectrum PlatinumSM level maintenance service. [...read more...]

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