Traditional Architecture Challenges Drive Imperative Infrastructure Transformation
Rapid growth in the futures industry demands greater architectural flexibility, rapid delivery, and scalability—areas where legacy systems fall short. Recognizing these constraints, Guotai Junan Futures conducted an industry-wide digital transformation survey and identified Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) as the ideal solution. Its inherent agility and elastic scalability effectively address current infrastructure pain points.
Technical Priorities for Architectural Transformation
In selecting technology partners, Guotai Junan Futures prioritizes technical autonomy and business alignment. Given the high transaction volumes, real-time data needs, and low-latency sensitivity of the futures industry, IT infrastructure must deliver exceptional agility, reliability, and management ease. HCI meets these demands by providing a high-performance, low-latency trading environment. Furthermore, its modular scalability allows for the independent expansion of compute or storage nodes without downtime, enabling seamless online capacity upgrades to support rapid service deployment.
Building a Lightweight Cloud Foundation via SmartX ECP
Following the partnership with SmartX, Guotai Junan Futures has progressively migrated several production systems to the SmartX ECP. These applications include quantitative trading, clearing, exchange front-end, middle-office development, simulation, asset management, and relay systems.
"We have accumulated extensive operational experience over five years of utilizing hyper-convergence. Virtually all our proprietary apps and business systems are now cloud-deployed. SmartX ECP, an HCI-based cloud platform, has effectively supported our technical and digital transformation strategies. The financial industry, particularly futures, demands extreme transaction stability; our clients are sensitive to latency at the millisecond level. Throughout our experience with SmartX ECP, its reliability has been exceptional, providing seamless performance without any issues over the past five years."
Leveraging SmartX ECP Advantages to Advance ITAI Transformation
Based on the proven performance and stability of SmartX ECP, Guotai Junan Futures has further advanced its ITAI transition. By adopting SmartX’s self-developed distributed storage ZBS and ELF virtualization to replace legacy centralized storage and VMware, the firm has built a lightweight, autonomous cloud infrastructure through integrated stack compatibility.
Through two phases of development, ITAI clusters powered by high-performance processors were established. These clusters now support critical business systems, including the authentication center, contract management, and disaster recovery (remote DR for the CTP main system).
Deepening Collaboration to Explore Cloud-Native Frontiers
Throughout their partnership, Guotai Junan Futures and SmartX have jointly explored futures industry scenarios, collaborating on software compatibility and ITAI technical research to optimize the deployment and application of hyper-converged infrastructure.
"Our experience with SmartX extends beyond a simple transaction; they actively ensure we maximize the product’s potential. As early adopters of HCI in the futures industry, this collaborative support was essential for our rapid transition. SmartX has demonstrated a significant commitment to the futures sector. Extensive software compatibility and ITAI transformation require deep technical collaboration, and SmartX’s substantial investment in these areas has been a key factor in our successful implementation."
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.
