Banque Indosuez --IBM PS/2s Linked To Decnet Architecture

Banque Indosuez has trading rooms in London, Singapore, Tokyo, Bahrain, New York, and Chicago. In Paris, Banque Indosuez' 120- position trading operation has occupied the same large room since 1983. Covering foreign exchange, money markets, swaps, bonds, and MATIF (the French financial futures market), it was the first Paris room to unify trading operations.

Prior to the installation of the new trading system, market data services were supplied to the Indosuez room entirely through stand- alone video controllers. There was no video switch. Every workstation required a controller with keyboard and in some cases a PC. Indosuez dealers were paired off to share Reuter Monitor and Telerate controllers. Each two-dealer team also shared a Reuter Monitor Dealing Service terminal.

Banque Indosuez' goal was to leapfrog from a roomful of stand-alone video controllers to a fully digital information system. Initially the bank felt that a dealing room system from Data Logic Ltd. or Rich Inc. would be the best choice.

These solutions were rejected, according to Christian Perret, director of operations and telecommunications, because they are "essentially matrix video switch-based systems that make heavy use of proprietary technology rather than off-the-shelf systems using standard hardware and software."

More to the point, the traders at Banque Indosuez expressed a firm preference for the IBM PC as a workstation. About 50 stand-alone IBM PCs were already in use, running pricing, decision support, position keeping, and portfolio management applications. Many of the PCs were connected to an internal mainframe, but none received real-time market data updates.

The traders also requested four physical monitors: one for DOS applications and three for market data page displays. Perret persuaded the traders to accept two monitors, one with the ability to display three or more windows.

Given the traders' attitude and the bank's preference for off-the- shelf technology, the IBM PC or PS/2 became the workstation of choice. The workstations would require real-time market data for their DOS applications. Hence the commitment to a digital market data system including Reuter RDCDF, Telerate TDPF and TOPVAL, the French Stock Exchange information service.

A matrix video switch would also be necessary because several crucial information services -- such as Reuter Dealing -- are not yet available in digital form.

Hence the data delivery system would need to integrate keystroke equivalencies for a variety of digital and video information services into a single IBM PS/2 keyboard.

Approaching trading systems integrators with these requirements, CP Technology emerged as the vendor most willing to take on the Indosuez challenge. CP Technology's MIX (Market Information Exchange system) was installed successfully at Chase Manhattan Bank in London as part of a hybrid (digital and video) trading room solution.

The MIX system is a series of MicroVAX II computers connected together by DECnet Ethernet. At Indosuez, MIX supports the primary data network including Reuters and Telerate feed handlers, composite paging and computational analysis servers, a Telex interface, and an electronic mail facility.

Indosuez considered the Sun 386i Roadrunner and Series 3 workstations, as well as VAXstation 2000s, but settled on the IBM PS/2-80 (80386-based with four megabytes of RAM) because it virtually guarantees DOS and OS/2 compatibility. "We cannot take the risk that our trading platform won't be fully DOS-compatible," says Perret.

The PS/2s are connected to the MIX DECnet Ethernet -- known as the primary network -- through asynchronous connection to a standard DEC terminal server. "We could have connected the PS/2s directly to the Ethernet, but there was a risk that the Ethernet connection for 120 workstations would not function well," says Perret.

The terminal management function of the primary network oversees the distribution of selected page updates to each of the several subsets of traders. The terminal manager keeps track of individual data entitlements and data presentation formats.

The secondary networks of the Indosuez trading room give distributed access to DOS applications developed for specific markets such as FRAs, swaps or currencies. These networks link workstations within a trading group and are therefore not likely to exceed 20 nodes. The secondary networks will most likely use IBM's Token Ring communications protocol.

So each workstation has links to three different networks: the primary digital data network, the secondary DOS application network, and the switch-based video distribution network. The standard PS/2 keyboard is used to access all three networks.

Each workstation is equipped with a 16" IBM color master monitor and an NEC Multisync monitor, and has access to a Reuter Dealing port. The Multisync monitor can either be used to display pages from the video subsystem, or to magnify individual windows from the IBM screen. The Multisync monitor was necessary because the output of the video switch isn't compatible with the VGA standard used in the IBM monitor.

CP Technology and Banque Indosuez developed a complete Reuter Dealing terminal emulation. A simulated Dealing keyboard appears in a drop window on the IBM monitor and can be controlled by mouse or keyboard. The Dealing screen can be switched to the Multisync monitor.

But for now, Indosuez dealers continue to use the dedicated Reuter Dealing terminal because one of the key currency dealing applications doesn't run under Windows and therefore must occupy the Multisync monitor. The Dealing display can't be switched to the IBM monitor because it doesn't accept video input.

Traders feel the 16" IBM monitor is too small to effectively display three readable windows, and Perret plans to replace them with 19" or 20" monitors in the near future. Each position's complement of screens includes a sunken 18" touch-sensitive telephone turret screen supplied by French manufacturer CSEE.

In the past, Banque Indosuez traders used PCs, personal calculators, and market data displays. By the end of the year, says Perret, the functionality of all three should be available through the PS/2 trading workstation. The MIX system with 120 PS/2 workstations was installed in four months.