Sun Enterprise 250 Server For Network Com example essay topic

Company Ameritrade Holding Corporation Industry / Market Financial Services / Discount Brokerage Key Solution Requirements? Major IT infrastructure upgrade to meet growing business requirements? Sustain Ameritrade's market position for low operating costs and high levels of customer service via technological innovation? Adaptable, standards-based IT environment for current and emerging discount broker- age functions and delivery channels Key Solution Components? Sun? Computing Platform: - Sun Enterprise?

Servers - Sun Netra? Servers - Solaris? Operating Environment - Sun Cluster Software? Java? technology development environment? Oracle 8 i database? Oracle?

Parallel Server (OPS)? VERITAS File System? EMC Symmetrix Storage Systems? BEA WebLogic & Tuxedo Application Servers? Ameritrade C++ and Java applications? iPlanet? Web Server?

SunSpectrum? support services Key Solution Benefits? An open, powerful and scalable platform using proven components for support of Ameritrade's continuing business expansion? Superior use of technology as an Ameritrade market differentiator? Assurance of early access to new technology- cal developments through industry-leading technology providers such as Sun Microsystems AMERITRADE HOLDING CORPORATION A NEW IT INFRASTRUCTURE "Ameritrade is a long and highly satisfied user of Sun? computing platforms-we regard Sun Microsystems as the "best-of-breed" in the UNIX? server world.

The Sun organiza- tion, the Sun Enterprise? and Sun Netra? servers, the Solaris? Operating Environment and the service and support capabilities are exceptional. Although we looked at other options, it was really an easy decision for us to continue with Sun when we embarked on a recent major upgrade to our IT infrastructure". Raymond Dury Chief Information Officer Ameritrade Ameritrade: Business Background The present Ameritrade Holding Corporation, (NASD: AMTD), was originally established in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1971 as First Omaha Securities. The company's key business strategies from the outset have focused on deep discount brokerage ser- vices while offering very high value to the investor. Innovative use of technology has been key to the corporation's realization of its business goals, from the perspectives of both low operational costs and providing industry-leading levels of service to clients.

The corporation has grown dramatically over the years and continues to expand even during the current period of a major pullback in market activity. Joe Mo glia, Chief Executive Officer of Ameritrade Holding Corporation, offered the following observation when commenting on the cor- poration's excellent results for its 3rd Quarter ending 29 June 2001, "For many years, Ameritrade has made crucial strate- gic investments and acquisitions for a last- ing competitive advantage in a fast-growing sector: a powerful technology infrastructure and trading engine, the industry's lowest cost structure, and a brand that is synonym- mous with empowering the self-directed investor". Ameritrade Holding Corporation is orga- nized in two major divisions, the first serv- ing institutional clients and the second serving private clients. The corporation's business operations range from client-ori- enter online and telephone-based broker- age services to back office clearing and settlement functions. The private client side of the Ameritrade businesses serves the full range of clients from the casual investor to the sophisticated professional and employs four integrated channels for delivery of ser- vices to Ameritrade clients. The Ameritrade organization, business operations and deliv- ery channels are highlighted in Figure 1.

The recently upgraded information technol- ogy (IT) platform supporting private client operations, which uses products and tech- nologies from Sun Microsystems, Inc. and other leading technology providers, is the focus of this case study report. Ameritrade's IT Environment Over the Years Ameritrade has long followed a business strat- egy of exploiting technology to lower its operat- ing costs while continually improving and expanding the level of services for its large and growing client base. It was one of the first in the securities industry to move from proprietary computing solutions to open, UNIX? system computing platforms to achieve both its low cost and high service quality goals. And it has relied on one leading supplier of UNIX system plat- forms for more than a decade-Sun Microsystems, Inc. Over the past several years, Ameritrade has used Sun servers ranging from the SPARC? 1000 processor in early years to the Sun Enterprise? mid-range and data center servers and very recently the Sun Netra? carrier grade servers for data communications functions in a Web-based computing environment.

Ameritrade has gone through multiple mira- tions with successive generations of Sun servers and Solaris? Operating Environment releases with each offering a smooth, evolutionary path to greater power, capacity and reliability. The continuing advances in the Sun products and services have supported Ameritrade's rapid busi- ness growth and effective exploitation of emerg- ing technological advances such as Web-based and Java? technologies in an ever-expanding market place. And Ameritrade has recently again confirmed Sun's role as the company's strategic supplier of computing platform solutions. Recognizing the impact of the Internet on mar- ket operations and the use of Web-based tech- nologies to reduce costs and expand services, Ameritrade made a decision in mid-1999 to greatly expand and upgrade its IT infrastructure for all of the processing operations and delivery channels used for private client services. More than $100 million was budgeted by Ameritrade to develop, integrate and deploy the upgraded IT infrastructure.

Business and Technical Requirements for the Ameritrade IT Infrastructure Upgrade The Ameritrade IT team worked closely with the company's business departments to define the key business and technical criteria that would guide the upgrade project. The basic goal was to sustain and enhance the Ameritrade industry- leading position in the discount brokerage mar- ket through low operating costs in combination with superior service for investors. Specific busi- ness and technical goals defined by the team are summarized below.? Business criteria for the new IT infrastructure project included: - Provide a solid IT platform to support contin- ing rapid growth in customers, transac- tions, features & functions and geographic reach. - Assure that the new IT infrastructure is cost- effective, assuring high levels of reliability, availability, scalability and performance at low operating costs. - Build in sufficient flexibility to assure easy and rapid adaptation to changes in market conditions, regulatory compliance require- ments and customer preferences with respect to delivery channels and other fea- tures.

Flexibility must also assure that the cost and performance benefits of new and emerging technologies can be leveraged 2 web NASDAQ: AMTD Headquarters: Omaha, Nebraska Institutional Client Division Delivery Channels Financial Institutions Services Trade Cast by Ameritrade AMTD Corporate Services AMTD Retirement Services AMTD International AMTD RIA Services AMTD Correspondent Sales Ameritrade Brokerage Ameritrade Plus Ameritrade Pro Free trade by Ameritrade Private Client Division? Internet-based online? Interactive Voice Response (IVR) telephone system? Broker assisted, telephone-based personalized services? SWAP-based Wireless for Sprint PCS mobile phones and personal organizers Figure 1: Ameritrade Holding Corporation Businesses and Delivery Channels without any major change to the underlying IT architectural design. - Assure that the IT service level agreements (SLAs) for both Ameritrade business depart- ments and clients will be met or exceeded.

These include SLAs in such areas as business volumes, response times, resource consume- tion, availability, trade execution accuracy, peak load processing, and delivery channel performance (e. g., time to display the home page when a client logs on to an Ameritrade service via a PC or wireless device). - Assure that the new IT infrastructure makes superior use of technology to distinguish Ameritrade from its competitors.? Technical criteria defined by the Ameritrade team included: - The infrastructure upgrade will be done within an N-tier architecture, including data- base, applications, front-end delivery and back office / external system integration capabilities. Rigorous security features, including firewall protection not only between external and internal resources but also between architectural tiers will be inte- goal to the new architecture. - Only open, standards-based components from leading technology companies will be used in the new infrastructure. In addition, compatibility between components must be assured through reference account install a- tions or technology alliances between key component suppliers.

- The new infrastructure must be able to migrate and run existing applications effi- ciently and reliably without modification to those applications. New software develop- ments, in terms of business logic objects, workflows and other functionality, will be developed using Java? technology and devel- opment tools and aids using Ameritrade in- house resources. - The existing service delivery channels, including broker-assisted telephone service, IVR automated telephone services and Web- based online services will be migrated to the new infrastructure and enhanced in terms of reliability, security and speed. In addition, the new Ameritrade wireless delivery capa- bilities using the wireless applications proto- col (WAP) for cellular phones and Palm Organizer personal digital assistants (PDAs) will be made into mainstream delivery chan- nels for Ameritrade customers. - The production, development, integration, and test / backup facilities of the new Ameritrade IT environment will be physically and logically segregated from one another to assure that reliability, accuracy, security and availability standards are maintained.

Having established the guidelines within which the new IT infrastructure would be realized, the Ameritrade team then proceeded to evaluate and select key technology component suppliers, products and services. They began with the underlying foundation, the UNIX computing platform and related products and services. Selection of Sun Microsystems as a Key Technology Provider for the New Ameritrade IT Infrastructure The Ameritrade technical team made an early and key decision to confirm Sun Microsystems as its strategic technology supplier for the new IT infrastructure upgrade project. Key criteria favor- ing Sun as the Ameritrade technology partner include the following: ? Sun is widely recognized as the leading sup- plier of open, scalable UNIX computing plat- forms for network-based solutions throughout the global securities industry.

Sun enjoys an excellent reputation throughout the securities industry and is the supplier of choice for many leading investment banks, broker / dealers and other financial institutions around the world.? The Sun Enterprise? server family with the Solaris Operating Environment have been used by Ameritrade for several years for develop- ment, production and backup computing platforms and Ameritrade is a very satisfied customer. The Sun organization, Sun's prod- ucts and Sun's support services enjoy an excel- lent reputation at Ameritrade.? Sun Microsystems is able to supply a superior computing platform suited to the unique needs of Ameritrade. The Sun Enterprise 10000 data center server, chosen by Ameritrade as the cornerstone for its new IT infrastructure, offers a powerful and cost-effective solution that can be configured to meet Ameritrade's current needs and continually scaled up as required without any requirement for architec- tural changes.

The Sun Enterprise 10000 server offers the following key advantages: - It is the industry's leading Symmetrical Multi-Processor (SMP) architecture bringing mainframe-plus power in an open and cost- effective package. The Sun Enterprise 10000 server can be configured in multiple parti- tions called Dynamic System Domains (DSDs), with up to 16 DSDs per server. - The Sun Enterprise 10000 provides high scalability, including built-in 'headroom' of up to 64 UltraSPARC? 400 MHz processors and 64 GB of main memory per server. In addition, the features integral to the Sun Enterprise 10000 when used in conjunction with Sun Cluster software make it possible to attain higher levels of scalability, reliability and performance through server clustering.

- It offers a very high level of operational flexibility via its script-based Automatic Dynamic Reconfiguration (ADR) capability and the InterDomain Network feature that supports more efficient use of the server's DSDs.? Sun's powerful and proven version of the UNIX platform, the Solaris Operating Environment, enjoys an outstanding reputation in all vertical markets and is especially well regarded in the securities industry. The Solaris Operating Environment is standard across all levels of Sun Enterprise and Sun Netra? servers and supports computing platform upgrades with- out any need for change to the operating system environment.? Sun offers a superior worldwide service and support organization for installation and main- tenancy services.

Through a broad range of SunSpectrumSM technical services, the Ameritrade service environment can be tai- lord to meet unique needs for the develop- ment, production and backup environments.? Sun is the originator and leading supporter of Java technology, including the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition? (J 2 EE?) as a development environment. The J 2 EE platform and other tools and aids fit well with Ameritrade's deci- sion to use Java technology to develop busi- ness logic components and other essential discount brokerage service functions.? Sun has long-standing technical relationships with leading suppliers of technical solutions and services widely used in the securities industry, including several preferred by Ameritrade.

Examples include Oracle Corporation, BEA Systems and VERITAS Software. The Computing Platform for the New Ameritrade IT Infrastructure The computing platform specified by Ameritrade for its new IT infrastructure is comprised of sev- eral hardware and software products from Sun Microsystems, including the Sun Enterprise and Sun Netra server families, Sun Cluster software and the Solaris Operating Environment.? The Sun Enterprise server family is the indus- try's only single, binary-compatible product line featuring a range of servers that scale from one to 64 processors, providing customers with flexibility, investment protec- tion and an unparalleled growth path. Designed for workgroup, departmental and data center computing environments, the Sun Enterprise server family provides an ideal platform for open, scalable network-based solutions such as that required for Ameritrade's high volume, multi-delivery channel system for discount brokerage ser- vices. Sun Enterprise 10000 data center servers along with Sun Cluster software were chosen to be used in high availability cluster config- rations for the database tiers of the n-tier architecture chosen by Ameritrade. Sun Enterprise 4500 mid-range servers were selected for the application tiers.

For the front- end telephone-based delivery system tiers Ameritrade chose Sun Enterprise 250 and Sun Enterprise 450 workgroup servers. - The Sun Enterprise 10000 data center server is Ameritrade's choice for the production and performance test / backup systems. As noted earlier, the powerful and unique features of the Sun Enterprise 10000 data center servers were a positive factor in Ameritrade's deci- sion to continue with Sun Microsystems as its strategic provider for computing plat- forms. Each production server is configured with UltraSPARC 400 MHz processors, and multiple dynamic system domains for pro- duction operations. The two servers are interconnected via a gigabit Ethernet chan- nel. Sun Cluster software enhances the high availability native to the Sun Enterprise 10000 servers.

Each server can be expanded to include 64 processors, 64 GB memory and up to 16 dynamic system domains. Automatic Dynamic Reconfiguration (ADR) and InterDomain Networks (IDN) are generic capabilities of the Sun Enterprise 10000 servers. A CPU capacity-on-demand (COD) feature allows for additional CPUs to be configured as hot standby processors for immediate capacity increases as may be required by Ameritrade. - The Sun Enterprise 4500 mid-range servers with the Solaris Operating Environment are used as the primary platform at the applica- tion tiers of the new IT environment.

The Sun Enterprise 4500 server delivers very high levels of expandability and availability along with advanced system management tools. It can be configured with up to 14 UltraSPARC 400 MHz processors and up to 14 GB of main memory. As many as four Sun Enterprise 4500 servers can be mounted in a single data center cabinet, improving manageability and lowering operating costs. With its small footprint, tremendous power and proven reliability, the Sun Enterprise 4500 server is among the most widely used computing systems in the securities industry. - The Sun Enterprise 450 servers are used by Ameritrade for various front-end delivery system functions and services, including internal communications servers for LAN- based Ameritrade registered representatives providing broker-assisted services via voice telephone.

The Sun Enterprise 450 servers deliver excellent performance for almost any mix of applications for computation, data handling or I / O. The Sun Enterprise 450 server can be configured with up to four UltraSPARC processors, four GB of main memory and up to 72.8 GB of fast hot-swap- able UltraSCSI internal storage plus over six TB of external mass storage. The Sun Enterprise 450 server offers a very high level of reliability with standard ECC datapath and memory protection, automatic system re cov- ery and hot-swap power supplies and disk drives. Like other members of the Sun Enterprise family, the Sun Enterprise 450 runs Sun's powerful and dependable Solaris Operating Environment. - The Sun Enterprise 250 workgroup servers are also used in the front-end delivery sys- tem tiers, e. g., as IVR servers and for selected security and directory services. The Sun Enterprise 250 server for network com- puting is based on the UltraSPARC processor technology and brings next-generation multi- processing power, UltraSCSI disks and the industry-standard peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus to a highly modular, rack-optimized design with a compact foot- print. The Sun Enterprise 250 servers have proved to be ideal servers for network-based functions and are widely installed in the securities industry.

Each Sun Enterprise 250 server can be configured with up to two UltraSPARC II CPUs and 2 GB of memory for high performance and expandability.? The Sun Netra family of carrier grade servers is designed for use as network infrastructure components and for nodal points between networks and computing facilities. The Sun Netra servers are compliant with key standards for both the computing and tele communica- tions industries. Wireline, wireless and Internet-based computing systems are typical environments for the Sun Netra servers.

Ameritrade selected the Sun Netra T 1405 L carrier grade servers as the front-end Web server hardware along with a limited number of new Sun Netra T 105 servers as wireless network gateways.? Sun Cluster software was incorporated into the configuration for its scalability and fail over functionality. It is particularly effective for high demand database operations when used with the Oracle? Parallel Server (OPS), see below. The Sun Cluster software is critical in the successful OPS transfer of failed node connections to the remaining Oracle instances. Clustering has a desired functionality to increase the number of computer nodes in a logical processing group.

With Sun Cluster, a maximum of 1024 individual CPUs may be configured into one logical processing node. As noted earlier, scalability of the system is a major technical objective for the new infra- structure set by Ameritrade. The projected growth of Ameritrade databases and applica- tions may require the staging of multiple physical computer cabinets that will logically perform as a single unit. The capabilities of Sun Cluster software assure virtually unlimited capacity for future business growth.?

Sun's Solaris Operating Environment was chosen as the UNIX operating system to be installed on all Sun Enterprise and Sun Netra servers. The Solaris Operating Environment is the leading UNIX environment installed in the global securities industry today. Originally designed with the Internet in mind, it has kept the central Internet protocol, TCP / IP, at the core of its networking capabilities for more than 15 years. Through its proven design-a small stable kernel, modular and extensible components and well defined interfaces- Solaris software delivers rock-solid stability and predictability for business-critical 7/24 network-based computing solutions. Ameritrade has been a highly satisfied user of the Solaris Operating Environment for several years and has chosen the Solaris 8 Operating Environment for the new IT infrastructure.

Other Technology Components of the Ameritrade Infrastructure Upgrade To complete the upgraded Ameritrade IT infra- structure, the company selected proven prod- ucts from several leading technology suppliers. In addition to the functionality, reliability and scalability criteria critical to the total solution, Ameritrade wanted products with an established track record in the securities industry and prod- ucts proven to provide high performance levels on the Sun computing platform.? Database Software from Oracle Corporation and VERITAS Software. Ameritrade, already a satisfied user of Oracle software solutions, selected Oracle database software for the infrastructure upgrade and decided to use the VERITAS File System in conjunction with the Solaris Operating Environment and the Oracle database software to attain higher levels of throughput and per- formance. The specific database software components chosen by Ameritrade include: - Oracle 8 i database is used for multiple Ameritrade databases, e. g., customers, transactions, commissions and fees, product information, securities instrument research, performance logs and transaction / message logs. Oracle database is the most powerful database available for driving enterprise eBusiness applications, online transaction processing (OLT P) applications and query intensive databases.

- Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) was chosen by Ameritrade to extend the capabilities of the Oracle 8 i database software. OPS is a robust Oracle database option that is particularly suited to support high availability (protec- tion from system failures), cluster scalability (working with the Solaris Operating Environment to improve overall system performance), and single system manage- ability (and reduce system management costs and resource requirements). - VERITAS File System is used for mass storage formatting and partitioning for both the production and backup sites. The VERITAS software also augments the Oracle database software with high availability, structural integrity and increased bandwidth features.?

Database Storage Systems from EMC. EMC Symmetrix Storage Systems were picked by Ameritrade as the repositories for the sev- eral types of databases and logs to be main- tained at production and backup sites, both of which will have multi-terabytes of usable storage. Ameritrade was a very satisfied user of EMC information storage products, a deci- sive factor in the selection of EMC for the new IT infrastructures storage needs.? Application Server and Message / Transaction Routing & Management Software from BEA Systems. Ameritrade made an early decision to use Java technology for business logic, transaction workflow and messaging management and to develop the Java technology components using in-house resources. Much of the business logic and workflow functionality will be provided by Enterprise JavaBeans?

(EJB?) components with some applications also developed as JavaServer Pages? (JSP?) framework and Java Messaging Services (JMS). Selection of a proven and powerful application server soft- ware product for both the development and runtime environments for the Ameritrade solution was a very important part of the ven- dor evaluation process. In addition, the Ameritrade discount brokerage transaction processing systems required a proven, high-speed and reliable message / transaction routing and manage- ment system to meet its service goals for cus- tomers. To meet Ameritrade's stringent needs, the message / transaction routing and manage- ment software must provide an extensive set of application program interfaces (APIs) and other application server capabilities to support exchanges within and between all compo- nents of the new N-tier architecture. Ameritrade had prior experience with software infrastructure products from BEA Systems and was a very satisfied user.

Following examine- tion of alternatives, the Ameritrade team selected the BEA WebLogic Enterprise platform to provide the application development and runtime environments for the upgrade. The two key components of the BEA WebLogic Enterprise platform, BEA WebLogic Application Server and BEA Tuxedo Application Server, provide the functionality required by Ameritrade for both business logic component development and reliable, fast transaction routing and management for production oper- ations. The BEA WebLogic Application Server is most used at the front-end and applications tiers of the new Ameritrade architecture and the BEA Tuxedo Application Server provides interface and interoperability capabilities between architectural layers and back office and external processing systems. The BEA software chosen by Ameritrade is widely used in the securities industry and enjoys an excellent global reputation for per- formance, reliability and scalability.

A long- standing technical alliance between Sun Microsystems and BEA Systems assures Ameritrade that the critical BEA infrastructure software will fit well with the new Ameritrade IT solution. The BEA software choices con- tribute to the Ameritrade goal to adapt its new 7 Key Technology Providers Sun Microsystems, Inc., (web), headquartered in Palo Alto, California is a leading provider of industrial strength hardware, software and services for network-based computing. Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision-The Network Is The Computer?" -has propelled Sun Microsystems to its present market posi- tion. With $18.3 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries.

Oracle Corporation, (web), headquartered in Redwood Shores, California is the world's leading supplier of software for e-business, and the world's second largest independent soft- ware company. With annual revenues of more than $10.3 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services in more than 145 coun- tries around the world. Oracle is the only company capable of implementing complete global e-business solutions that extend from front office customer relationship management to back office operational applications to plat- form infrastructure. BEA Systems, Inc. (web), headquartered in San Jose, California, is one of the world's leading e-business infra struc- ture software companies.

BEA WebLogic is among the most trusted names on the Internet, and is the market-leading Java application server for rapidly building, deploying and managing e-business applications. The broader vision of BEA is to provide the essential infrastructure for building an inte- grated e-business. VERITAS Software Corporation, (web), head- quartered in Mountain View, California, is a leading provider of data availability software solutions that enable customers to protect and access their business-critical data. VERITAS is a market leading innovator of data protection, file system and volume management, clustering, replica- tion, storage area network (SAN) and application software solutions that continuously deliver data when and where needed. iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, (web), is a Sun- Netscape Alliance formed in March 1999 by Sun Microsystems, Netscape Communications and AOL to build, market and service e- commerce infrastructure solutions. It is a one-stop shop for Internet- enabling software products that include Web, application and directory servers to support e-commerce solutions when and where needed. iPlanet has a global presence in Sun and AOL offices in over 170 countries. EMC Corporation, (web), with headquarters in Hopkinton, Massachusetts is the world leader in information storage systems, software, networks and services and the provider of robust, secure and trusted information storage infrastructure solutions.

EMC's flag- ship product, the Symmetrix storage systems, first introduced in 1990 and continually enhanced to the present Symmetrix 8000 line, is among the most widely installed information storage systems in the world. EMC, with revenues of nearly $9 billion for 2000, is represented by more than 100 sales offices and distribution partners in over 50 countries. E-commerce Solutions Netscape Alliance A Su IT infrastructure through scalability and flexi- bility for ease of adjustment.? Web Server Software from iPlanet. The iPlanet?

Web Server (formerly the Netscape? Enterprise Server) from the Sun and Netscape iPlanet Alliance was chosen as the development and runtime environment for Web connectivity to Ameritrade's online cus- tomers for discount brokerage services. The iPlanet Web Server is designed to provide superior levels of performance in any comput- ing platform comprised of Sun Enterprise servers and the Solaris Operating Environment. Technical Service and Support for Ameritrade's New IT Environment The new Ameritrade infrastructure equipment base was installed and is being maintained by SunSpectrum services, a globally available port- folio of services that can be tailored to the unique needs of each customer situation. The range of service level options extend from on- site 24/7 staffing at the high end to on-call tele- phone support for less critical requirements.

The SunSpectrum service options are subject to Sun and customer definition of site-specific service level agreements (SLAs). All levels of SunSpectrum support include access to new Solaris Operating Environment releases and updates at no additional cost. An Overview of the New Ameritrade IT Infrastructure An overview of the n-tier architecture as imple- mented by Ameritrade as a part of its IT infra- structure upgrade for production operations is illustrated in the Figure 2 diagram. Current Status of the New Ameritrade IT Infrastructure The Ameritrade IT infrastructure upgrade project is complete and is currently supporting Ameritrade's discount brokerage services from a new site in Kansas City, Kansas.

The capabilities of the new current production environment are evident from the following statistics from 2nd Quarter of CY 2001: ? Ameritrade executes an average of 109,000 trades per day. With existing capabilities, it has the capacity to process more than 500,000 trades per day.? The new IT environment provides trade, inquiry and research services for a base of more than 1.54 million clients, up from less than a million in the past two years.? The Ameritrade Web sites average more than 20 million hits per day, and have handled peak loads in excess of 40 million hits per day with- out any impact on service levels or any disrupt- tion of services.? With an average of 4.56 seconds to download its home page to an online user, Ameritrade is the fastest in the discount brokerage industry.

(See below) In addition to the production environment, illus- treated earlier in Figure 2, Ameritrade's technical organization also has separate development, integration and backup (business resumption) systems as a part of the new infrastructure.? The development environment, used mainly for the development of new business logic components using Java technology, is com- priced of Sun Ultra? 10 desktop servers and Sun Enterprise 250 and Sun Enterprise 450 workgroup servers with the Solaris Operating Environment and BEA WebLogic J 2 EE platform development facilities and aids.? The integration environment is used to inte- grate and test new business logic components that have been separately tested and are deemed to be ready for integration into the production environment. The integration environment is designed as a 1: 25 scale ver- sion of the production system in terms of capacities, components and transaction pro- cessing loads. Sun Enterprise servers ranging from the Sun Enterprise 250 server to Sun Enterprise 4500 servers are used along with appropriate storage facilities for the integra- tion activities.?

The Ameritrade IT environment also includes a performance test and backup facility that is a nearly 1: 1 model of the production environ- ment. Performance tests for major new capa- bilities and functions are performed here prior to their release to the production environment. 9 Internet Back Office & External Systems? Accounting? Clearing & Settlement? Market Data Vendors?

(Other) Database Tier? Sun Enterprise? 10000 Servers? Solaris? Operating Environment? Sun?

Cluster Software? VERITAS File System? Oracle 8 i database? Oracle Parallel Server (OPS)?

EMC Symmetrix Storage Systems Internal Firewall (s) Internal Firewall (s) Application Tiers? Sun Enterprise 4500 Servers? Solaris Operating Environment? BEA WebLogic? Ameritrade In-house Applications - Customer Inquiries - Order Execution - (Others, EJB and C++ Business Logic Components) BEA WebLogic & Tuxedo (Multiple interface, integration, message routing and transaction management functions) Front End Delivery System Tiers? Sun Enterprise 250 Servers?

Sun Enterprise 450 Servers? Sun Netra? 1405 L Servers? Security Services? IVR Software? iPlanet Web Server?

(Other Services & Functions) Internal Firewall (s) Internal Communications Servers IVR Servers Web Servers Wireless Gateway External Firewall (s) BEA WebLogic & Tuxedo (Multiple interface, integration, message routing and transaction management functions) Voice / IVR Switch BEA WebLogic & Tuxedo (Multiple interface, integration, message routing and transaction management functions) Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) Wireless Network Ameritrade Registered Representatives Hundreds of thousands of Ameritrade Investors Data Voice Delivery Channels Figure 2: New Ameritrade N-Tier Architecture Computing Environment on a Sun Platform All parts of the new IT infrastructure are per- forming well and meeting or exceeding the expectations and goals established by Ameritrade when it embarked on the upgrade project. As one example of its performance, dur- ing a period of 78 weeks from 19 March 2000 to 20 July 2001, Ameritrade set a new standard for speed on the Internet as measured by the Keynote Consumer 40 Internet Performance Index. During that year, Ameritrade downloaded its consumer home page at an average of under 3.6 seconds, a 43 per cent faster loading time than that for the next closest site among 40 online brokerage systems monitored by Keynote. The Benefits of the New Ameritrade Solution The key benefit of the new infrastructure is that Ameritrade is able to meet its cost and service quality business goals on a platform that can be readily expanded and adapted to business growth, market changes and new technological developments. More specific benefits include: ? The new IT infrastructure provides an open, powerful and scalable platform for continuing expansion in terms of customers, delivery channels, geographic reach, and new features and functions without any disruption to on- going production operations or modifications to the underlying architecture.?

The new IT infrastructure is standards-based and built with proven components from lead- ing technology providers, thus providing ease of modification and adaptation to meet changes in market conditions or regulatory compliance requirements. The industry leader- ship positions of the key technology suppliers also provide early access to new technologies of value to the Ameritrade businesses.? Ameritrade is positioned to benefit from tech- no logical superiority and innovation as market differentiators in the highly competitive dis- count brokerage marketplace. Concluding Observation With its new IT environment in place, Ameritrade is well positioned to sustain its posi- tion of market leadership in the highly competi- tive discount brokerage marketplace. The individual and combined strengths of the key technology components and their suppliers are major factors in the success of the new infra- structure. The key suppliers, including Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation and BEA Systems, have worked in close alliance with one another and with the Ameritrade technical staff to realize a powerful solution that can serve as a model for the industry.

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Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X / Open Company, LTD. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. All trademarks and registered trademarks of other products and ser- vices mentioned in this report are the property of their respective owners. Netscape is a trademark or registered trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation in the United States and other countries.