Fourth Largest US Stock Exchange, Direct Edge, Looks to SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse for Big Data Needs

When the Direct Edge converted from an Electronic Communications Network (“ECN”) to a fully licensed stock exchange in July 2010, the company’s query response problems became more exacerbated as data volume and analytical demands increased. In short, they needed higher data capacity, faster query performance, and a business intelligence (BI) front-end to provide analysts with easy access to data. Already using Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server for reduced latency and operational costs, Direct Edge selected the SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse solution, including SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint and Excel, after evaluating other solutions in market. Microsoft teamed with Gold Partner BI Voyage and HP to deliver the HP Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance (Optimized for Parallel Data Warehouse) as part of a complete Business Intelligence solution, demonstrating the scalability and query speed Direct Edge needs to run their business successfully.

Direct Edge has been very impressed with the performance and scalability of Parallel Data Warehouse.  Recent tests on their data showed dramatic gain in performance, with up to 163 times improvement in query performance and data loading speeds of up to 1 TB per hour.   In addition, their testing data shows the solution generates reports in under 15 minutes, for what used to take over four hours.  Direct Edge also anticipates that through the simplified management of their new appliance, its staff can focus on running the exchange instead of maintaining and tuning a homegrown data warehouse. Analysts will also have greater access to a large amount of data through the BI front end, helping them to better understand their customers and enhance offerings to meet demand.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse offers customers high scalability to hundreds of terabytes, scalable performance and complete Data Warehouse platform thanks to integration with Microsoft Business Intelligence tools as well as complementary tools for master data management and streaming data. HP and Microsoft have pre-architected and optimized the HP Enterprise Data Warehouse for SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse to deliver simplicity and reduced deployment time for customers’ most critical data warehouse needs. Through deep integration with the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) platform and availability of complementary appliance solutions from HP, customers using PDW can deliver managed self-service BI solutions to everyone in the organization.