Paremus Taps RTI Messaging To Boost Service Fabric Performance

London-based Paremus is adopting low-latency messaging middleware from Real-Time Innovations (RTI) for internal communications underpinning its Service Fabric cloud computing platform. The move will allow Service Fabric to be deployed more readily in support of high performance front office and trade processing applications, and also allows Service Fabric developers to leverage RTI's middleware for their own messaging requirements.

Service Fabric is middleware that allows applications to be built as components - written in Java - and run in a dynamic distributed environment, as is typically provided by a private cloud. Essentially, says Paremus founder and CEO Richard Nicholson, the middleware is a "cloud based replacement for an enterprise Java application server."

Complying with the OSGi standard, Service Fabric allows components to be created, removed, initiated, stopped and updated dynamically without requiring server reboots, and provides high availability with no single point of failure. The OSGi standard is administered by the OSGi Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights, such as IBM and Oracle, as well as the likes of Progress Software, Red Hat, Tibco Software and VMware. Paremus is also a member.

Paremus will integrate RTI's Data Distribution Service (DDS) messaging to support so-called discovery of resources and services, and for real-time service monitoring, within a distributed Service Fabric implementation - functions crucial to the operation of distributed computing. Currently, Service Fabric implements this functionality using Java's Remote Method Invocation (RMI) facility, though adopting DDS will provide a boost to its performance.

That performance improvement, says Nicholson, will allow Service Fabric to be used more readily for front office applications, such as algorithmic trading and real-time pricing, and for trade processing in high volume environments. The DDS upgrade to Service Fabric is expected to be generally available in the late summer. Paremus - which was looking for a replacement for RMI - became aware of RTI as a result of a suggestion from a customer in the intelligence community, where RTI also does business.

Nicholson says it was attracted to the standards-based messaging adopted by RTI, and found its particular implementation to be "rock solid," thus providing a "low-latency, predictable, command and control mechanism" for Service Fabric. Customers will also have the option of using RTI for their own messaging requirements, adds Nicholson.

Nicholson says that building applications using the OSGi component approach is becoming increasingly attractive because it allows for code re-use and rapid development and deployment, as well as a reduction in maintenance of running systems, in part because run-time components are self documenting.

He cites one financial services customer as determining that it had reduced operational costs by 60% as a result of adopting OSGi. For RTI, the Paremus link up will provide a useful channel to increase its deployment in the financial services sector, where it has just a handful of customers, most notably Citibank.

The collaboration also provides an early proof-of-concept for cloud computing's adoption in real-time and demanding environments, a space thus far avoided by mainstream cloud providers, although one that is the focus of startup Cloudsoft Corp. with its Project Monterey initiative.