Legacy Complexity Drives Cloud Transformation
Before adopting hyper-converged infrastructure, China Merchants Futures relied on a traditional architecture primarily composed of physical servers, centralized storage, and small-scale VMware virtualization. As business demands grew, the overhead of managing physical hardware became increasingly complex. To meet the requirements of the digital economy, the firm initiated a strategic cloud transformation of its underlying infrastructure.
Adopting HCI via Rigorous POC Testing
China Merchants Futures first explored Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) in 2017, recognizing its potential for simplifying operations and building private clouds. As HCI deployments became more widespread, the firm initiated research and selection in 2020, conducting in-depth POC testing of SmartX ECP alongside two other leading brands.
In cluster performance tests, SmartX delivered the best results. Its stability and reliability during prolonged stress testing, along with the intuitive management interface, were highly rated by China Merchants Futures.
The testing also demonstrated SmartX's support for heterogeneous hardware within a single cluster, allowing for different CPU configurations (such as 4214R and 6226R) to operate seamlessly together.
"The decision to partner with SmartX for our infrastructure transformation was driven by their focus and long-term commitment to product excellence. It is rare to find a technology provider that remains dedicated to its core mission, continuously refining and iterating on its solutions to truly simplify infrastructure. SmartX is exactly that kind of company."
Dual CloudTower: Managing 36 ITAI and Production Clusters
In early 2021, China Merchants Futures first deployed an 8-node SmartX Halo HCI appliance. Following a year of stable operation, the infrastructure underwent continuous expansion throughout 2022 and 2023. As of 2024, the firm has deployed a total of 9 clusters and 36 nodes of SmartX ECP across data centers in two cities. Centrally managed via CloudTower, this infrastructure powers critical systems including the CTP secondary historical database, CTP trading gateways, AML systems, and trading middle-office platforms.
"Having used SmartX for over three years, our entire infrastructure has remained exceptionally stable and maintenance-free. The growing number of SmartX use cases within the futures industry further demonstrates their widespread recognition and proven track record in the sector."
Dual Transformation: Cloud and ITAI for Business Growth
China Merchants Futures has built its IT infrastructure on advanced, ITAI-compliant hyper-converged architecture. This foundation meets rigorous business demands for performance and reliability, enabling the firm to effectively navigate the dual challenges of digital transformation and ITAI integration.
"Since implementing the private cloud platform based on SmartX ECP, our operational complexity has been significantly reduced compared to traditional architecture. Previously, even with two dedicated infrastructure engineers, it was challenging to keep up with the workload. With SmartX, a single staff member can now maintain the entire infrastructure while dedicating only a fraction of their time to it. This transition has not only simplified our infrastructure and saved data center space and rack costs, but also significantly enhanced operational efficiency, allowing our team to focus on more strategic tasks."
SmartX Case Studies
7 scenarios, 11 selected cases, 54 pages. Include cases in scenarios like Replace VMware, Modernize Infrastructure, Critical Business Apps, General Apps, VDI, Dev & Test, Disaster Recovery, ROBO & Edge.
SmartX ECP Product Portfolio Brief
The SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP) offers a versatile enterprise cloud solution catering to both traditional and modern applications.
