AFTAs 2015: Best Global Deployment—Nomura Securities

The Nomura desktop is a global initiative to standardize the user experience and deployment strategy for internally developed desktop applications. It sits at the core of recent buildouts in credit, rates, securitized products, equities and foreign exchange. The platform has been deployed to over 3,600 users worldwide and serves as the foundation for 140 line-of-business applications.

The platform consists of four major building blocks. The desktop coordinator is the central hub for all desktop application activity. This function provides foundational services for application catalog management, execution lifecycle governance, inter-application communication, and remote desktop control, among other things. The desktop organizer, a multi-tabbed application similar to a web browser, combines views from multiple Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) processes into a single, cohesive display. The familiar user experience of the desktop organizer simplifies user setup and makes desktop real estate management easier, according to Nomura, while the content provider offers standard methods for the display of visual content.

“Our desktop deployment system is entirely configuration-driven and on-demand,” says Giles Stevenson, vice president at Nomura. The easy-to-use design allows a deployment to be performed via a few clicks through a synchronization wizard, while also allowing for entire releases to be undone with just a click or two.

According to Stevenson, the desktop user interface (UI) hosting architecture sets it apart from other deployment platforms. The URL-driven content browser concept allows .Net windows filtering Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications to be downloaded, installed and launched directly from URLs. These applications are able to inter-communicate over Nomura’s desktop event bus. 

“In addition, application URLs can be easily shared with colleagues, making the experience truly on-demand,” Stevenson says. “A deployment system needs to be reliable, simple to use, and have the ability to roll back deployments easily. Not only are banks reliant on their software, but their competitiveness often depends on their adaptability. Software release cycles tend to be short and intense, and application teams face pressures due to conflicting expectations to deliver quickly but with minimal risk. There are usually sizeable testing and change-management overheads. A bank needs a deployment system that is effortless and dependable,” Stevenson says. 

The Nomura desktop is a global initiative to standardize the user experience and deployment strategy for internally developed desktop applications. It has been deployed to over 3,600 users worldwide and serves as the foundation for 140 line-of-business applications.