High-Performance Infrastructure That Enables CMC Markets to Scale on Demand

As a global FinTech leader and pioneer in online trading, CMC Markets knows that availability and performance can make all the difference for a trading platform. With over 1 million clients globally leveraging our platform to trade forex, CFDs, indices, futures, and more, we constantly strive to enhance our services.

A key goal for my Sydney-based team is further regional expansion, but our aging infrastructure limited our potential. We knew we needed a solution that would not only modernize our technology, but also ensure our platform remains always available, with high execution speeds to support our customers’ needs.

The hidden costs of aging infrastructure

We knew what we wanted to do, but there were several obstacles to expansion. The underlying issue for these obstacles was an aging compute and storage infrastructure at the end of its lifecycle.

• The potential for outages posed a significant risk.
• The older the hardware gets, the more costly it is to manage because support subscriptions become more expensive. Understanding the total cost of ownership (TCO) for on-prem infrastructure has always been challenging. We never had a precise figure for how much our hardware cost us per day, for example. But we knew the trendline: with time, costs increase.
• There’s a human cost to managing infrastructure, too. The complexity of our traditional three-tier infrastructure required specialist expertise. Being a global company with distributed IT teams, many of these specialists supported us remotely from our head office in the UK. This hurt our operational efficiency within our region. We wanted to make our local IT team more independent and agile.

We knew we needed a refresh, and that required some strategic decisions. We expected an increase in VMware licensing costs, for example. To avoid getting locked in with VMware, we decided to migrate to Nutanix. Unfortunately, global supply chain constraints had lengthened lead times for hardware procurement during the pandemic. How could we eliminate that risk of being unable to scale on time?

The best solutions and expertise

For answers, we asked Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). We had a longstanding partnership with HPE and trusted their technology—our database workload uses Microsoft SQL on HPE ProLiant DL servers, our three-tier architecture runs on HPE Alletra Storage 9000, and we’re also running bare-metal workloads on HPE ProLiant DL servers.

However, the biggest benefit of working with HPE is their depth of expertise. That knowledge extends beyond their own technology, thanks to HPE’s vast partner network. HPE had the most prominent vendor partnership with Nutanix, so we wanted to engage them further for our latest migration.

Instead of trying to hire specialists, we saw the potential to effectively bring HPE’s expertise in-house through HPE Managed Services, which offers 24/7 onshore support here in Australia.

We built and managed our new infrastructure on the Nutanix platform using the HPE GreenLake cloud and HPE Managed Services. My team is great at building our own solutions, but we received great value from the expert guidance of the HPE Managed Services team. My IT team provided our requirements, including the architectural concepts that aligned with our global IT strategy. HPE responded with an architecture including custom-tailored solutions that would fulfill existing needs and scale for future ones. And by working directly with the manufacturer in partnership with Nutanix, we were able to optimize both solutions.

Modernizing our architecture was complicated, but HPE’s delivery was flawless: on-time, on-cost, on-spec, with no disruptions.

An agile, scalable infrastructure gives us new focus

CMC Markets APAC now has a robust, scalable infrastructure optimized for our workloads and capable of providing the trading experience we want for our clients. In the first year running on the HPE GreenLake cloud, our availability and performance scores were exceptionally high.

HPE Managed Services made all the difference in this project because it allowed our in-house engineers to shift their focus. The time HPE saves by handling day-to-day infrastructure operations is equivalent to the workload of two full-time engineers on my team. It enables our engineers to focus on strategic innovations, such as automation, that deliver value for the company.

Moving to a consumption-based model with the HPE GreenLake cloud increased our agility and ability to respond to market demands because we can scale as necessary. We also gained visibility into the cost of our storage and compute, down to the gigabyte. That detail wasn’t among our initial goals, but it’s helpful for budgeting.

More than any quantifiable metric, I see our results as a quality return. By fundamentally changing how we operate, we have accelerated CMC Markets’ ability to provide great trading services to our customers.

A partnership that matches a fast-evolving market

CMC Markets’ partnership with HPE has grown beyond a traditional vendor relationship. It’s now a strategic collaboration based on trust and aligned goals. We maintain that alignment by holding regular strategic business reviews and monthly governance meetings where we revisit the state of HPE’s services. HPE not only eased the burden of infrastructure management, they ease our minds.

From Pre-Sales to Professional Services, everyone at HPE is great to work with. We’ve created so many integrations and opportunities to collaborate, we see HPE as an extension of our own IT team.

HPE is a flexible partner with solutions to match every technological need—ideal for any company wanting to scale and innovate. CMC Markets APAC now has a reliable, future-proof platform supported by a strong partnership that allows us to provide exceptional trading services in a fast-evolving market.