O’Hara: JPM Makes Its Components Play Together

R. John O’Hara, distinguished engineer, vice president and global architect for equities at JP Morgan (JPM), spoke recently with TTW about his firm’s embrace of component-based trading systems, an effort that has led the firm to embrace Microsoft’s .Net remoting capabilities, and a relative newcomer, Intrynsic, a software provider based in Vancouver, Canada (TTW, Feb. 10). Like many forming IT strategies for trading rooms, O’Hara is grappling with building a bridge between .Net-based front-ends and Java-based back ends--a struggle that will not go away soon.

Our strategy is to provide the trading community with an integrated desktop environment--so deploying .Net for the desktop component of new equities trading applications is our strategy.

However, I believe that in the server space where much of the processing action happens, Java offers a more compelling story than .Net. Java server processes allow the bank to aggressively deploy Linux-based server platforms; and Linux is where all the really exciting innovations are--innovations which translate directly into ROI. Java is therefore our platform of choice for the server component of trading applications--but not to the exclusion of .Net.

A key thrust of my [recent] presentation [at Finexpo in London] was that no technology can be taken in isolation these days. Linux is the strongest driver from a corporate viewpoint. Making them all play together is vital.

Our current effort around .Net is in providing our clients and traders with enhanced program trading capabilities. We have a pure .Net system for trade analysis and execution, which we’ve already rolled out in North America, but expect to go global. We also have a strategic program trading system which is fronted by a .Net GUI but the smarts are all in Java (by design--this is not legacy). We have an auto-trading platform in pure .Net.

We keep developing new Java-based infrastructures and solutions! It’s very much an investment platform for us. As I said, Java is our preferred server language for reasons of functionality, openness, flexibility and platform choice. Java is also becoming a superb integration platform. We are looking forward to Java becoming even more powerful as .Net gives it some stiff competition--a kind of software arms race.

We had a look around at the few integrations that are available. A Web services-based integration tool is the obvious choice, but this is a trading platform and we had performance concerns. I dug into the Microsoft platform looking for the faster communications mechanisms knowing that there must be something else tucked in there and I found it in the form of .Net remoting.

The next thing was to find an implementation--there are very few. Intrinsycs was most appealing on the surface because it has no client-side install and they have reasonable licensing terms. Plus Intrinsyc’s JIntegra product for integrating Java and Microsoft platforms using Component Object Model (COM) is generally accepted as the leader in that area. In hindsight, they’re a good company to work with.

Trading room IT has always been a strange mix. The demand for enormous flexibility, instant delivery of internal systems, coupled with boutique vendor systems, which are usually small-scale engineered (and I’m being kind here!), results in a very ad-hoc environment. That’s not ideal from an IT perspective, but in this fast-moving environment we must accept the need to deliver rapidly and provide tools to help that. .Net on the traders’ desktops gives us the opportunity to integrate our applications with Excel and trading apps from ISVs easily, and have high performance.

It’s imperative that large firms take a stand on new technical issues. But these are very visible issues and it might be seen as dangerous to lead the charge into unknown waters. But then again, that’s my job and that’s why I’m one of the Distinguished Engineers at JPM IB.

JMS is a fantastic technology but it’s an application programming interface (API) for Java only. We need something cross-platform and open--at JPM Equities we’re considering how to address that. Watch this space!