LARGE FUTURES AND EQUITY BROKER

Situational Background
One of the world's leading providers of brokerage services needed to improve the performance and redundancy of its existing data center and production network. As with most financial institutions, the firm depended on its data network to provide services to clients and execute trades.

Business Challenges
As part of an office expansion plan, the brokerage house needed to restack the data center without disrupting operations or upgrading the existing core data switches. The plans included building out a new data center on a different floor, migrating operations from the current space into the new data center, and then demolishing the vacant space. In order to execute a seamless migration, the brokerage engaged Maron Structure Technologies to design the new data center and manage the technology migration.

Approach and Solution
Maron Structure Technologies started by developing a robust data center and network design. The deliverable included an explanation of the overall architecture, a hardware/software parts list, and design configuration details (ip scheme, vlan addressing, etc).

After the data center design was finalized, Maron Structure Technologies developed a migration plan accounting for a near zero-downtime environment. The migration plan involved building out a new data center on a separate floor and then cross-connecting the new data center to the existing data center. The cross-connections allowed for a phased migration with no impact to the production environment. The innovative phased migration plan, as designed by Maron Structure Technologies, also eliminated the need for a temporary cable plant and duplicate equipment for the transition.

In addition to designing the data center layout and the migration plan, Maron Structure Technologies also managed the physical relocation of the network equipment and provided day-one support.

Technical Specifics
As a high-level overview the data center and network design consisted of:

• Cisco Series Switches with Supervisor Engines
• Gigabit Ethernet Links in an EtherChannel Bundle
• Gigabit Ethernet Closet Switches (Combination of 10/100 and 10/100/1000 Switches)
• Cisco PIX Firewalls
• Spanning Tree and VTP Protocol Configuration

Business Outcome
The brokerage firm seamlessly transitioned from the old to the new data center and went on to leverage the benefits of a powerful and redundant data center.

Value Proposition
Maron Structure Technologies believes in providing clients unbiased and vendor neutral technology recommendations, utilizing technology that supports existing business needs and positions the organization to leverage future applications.

Contact Information:
For more information on this project, contact the Maron Marketing Department at +1 800-244-1700.