HPC in the Cloud


Dedicated to covering high-end cloud computing
in science, industry and the datacenter

Language Flags

Ohio Bank Handles Billions of Transactions on Oracle Grid


Ohio Savings Bank's mortgage system -- which processes hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions daily -- relies on an integrated Oracle Database 10g and Microsoft .NET architecture.

Founded in 1889, Ohio Savings Bank has grown from a savings and loan with a single branch office in Cleveland and $20,000 in assets to one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders. In 2004, the bank adopted an Oracle Database 10g Grid computing infrastructure to improve its information technology (IT) utilization and deliver a higher quality of service. Ohio Savings Bank's Grid supports a number of mission-critical systems including the heart and soul of its business -- a mortgage wholesale and retail application transaction processing system. Comprised of an Oracle Database and Microsoft middle-tier applications, the bank's transaction heavy mortgage system manages the lifecycle of loans from origination to funding. It is used by internal branches, loan processing offices, and brokers that originate loans across country and sell the loans to Ohio Savings Bank.

A three-node cluster using Oracle Real Application Clusters on two-way HP ProLiant DL 380 servers with Intel Xeon processors running Red Hat Enterprise Linux v. 3 powers Ohio Savings Bank's mortgage system. This clustered Oracle Database is fully integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 applications running on Windows.

A key component in the bank's integration of Oracle and Microsoft environments is their use of Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET), a driver that delivers optimized data access to Oracle Database functionality from a .NET environment. ODP.NET enables developers to take advantage of advanced Oracle Database features, including Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle XML DB, and advanced security functionality, among many others. It enables the bank to easily and flexibly use XML throughout its applications and interface and with Oracle Database. ODP.NET can be used from any .NET language, including C# and Visual Basic .NET.

"We really have the best of both worlds -- the power of Oracle Database and the ease of use of the .NET development environment," said Jo Ann Boylan, CTO and executive vice president of Ohio Savings Bank. "ODP.NET serves as a bridge -- enabling our developers to move seamlessly from the Microsoft world to Oracle world. In the end, our integrated Oracle Database and Microsoft architecture delivers a robust, highly available transaction processing system that drives the core of our business."

Most Read Blogs

Aspen

Feature Articles

CometCloud: Using a Federated HPC-Cloud to Understand Fluid Flow in Microchannels

The ever-growing complexity of scientific and engineering problems continues to pose new computational challenges. Thus, we present a novel federation model that enables end-users with the ability to aggregate heterogeneous resource scale problems. The feasibility of this federation model has been proven, in the context of the UberCloud HPC Experiment, by gathering the most comprehensive information to date on the effects of pillars on microfluid channel flow.
Read more...

CERN, Google, and the Future of Global Science Initiatives

Large-scale, worldwide scientific initiatives rely on some cloud-based system to both coordinate efforts and manage computational efforts at peak times that cannot be contained within the combined in-house HPC resources. Last week at Google I/O, Brookhaven National Lab’s Sergey Panitkin discussed the role of the Google Compute Engine in providing computational support to ATLAS, a detector of high-energy particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Read more...

Avoiding Scientific Computing Bottlenecks in the Cloud

Frank Ding, engineering analysis & technical computing manager at Simpson Strong-Tie, discussed the advantages of utilizing the cloud for occasional scientific computing, identified the obstacles to doing so, and proposed workarounds to some of those obstacles.
Read more...

Short Takes

NASA Builds 'Climate in a Box'

May 23, 2013 | The study of climate change is one of those scientific problems where it is almost essential to model the entire Earth to attain accurate results and make worthwhile predictions. In an attempt to make climate science more accessible to smaller research facilities, NASA introduced what they call ‘Climate in a Box,’ a system they note acts as a desktop supercomputer.
Read more...

Running Computational Fluid Dynamics in the Cloud

May 16, 2013 | When it comes to cloud, long distances mean unacceptably high latencies. Researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany examined those latency issues of doing CFD modeling in the cloud by utilizing a common CFD and its utilization in HPC instance types including both CPU and GPU cores of Amazon EC2.
Read more...

Sponsored Whitepapers

Best Practices in Big Data Storage

05/10/2013 | Cleversafe, Cray, DDN, NetApp, & Panasas | From Wall Street to Hollywood, drug discovery to homeland security, companies and organizations of all sizes and stripes are coming face to face with the challenges – and opportunities – afforded by Big Data. Before anyone can utilize these extraordinary data repositories, however, they must first harness and manage their data stores, and do so utilizing technologies that underscore affordability, security, and scalability.

Exploring the Potential of Heterogeneous Computing

04/02/2012 | AMD | Developers today are just beginning to explore the potential of heterogeneous computing, but the potential for this new paradigm is huge. This brief article reviews how the technology might impact a range of application development areas, including client experiences and cloud-based data management. As platforms like OpenCL continue to evolve, the benefits of heterogeneous computing will become even more accessible. Use this quick article to jump-start your own thinking on heterogeneous computing.

Sponsored Multimedias

Newsletters

Stay informed! Subscribe to HPC in the Cloud email Newsletters.

HPC in the Cloud Update
HPCwire Weekly Update
Digital Manufacturing Report
Datanami
HPCwire Conferences & Events
Job Bank
HPCwire Product Showcases



HPC Job Bank


Featured Events



  • June 16, 2013 - June 20, 2013
    ISC'13
    Leipzig,
    Germany

  • June 17, 2013 - June 18, 2013
    Forecast 2013
    San Francisco, CA
    United States




HPC in the Cloud Conferences & Events