Bear Upgrades Data Apps

Bear Stearns has deployed integrated data management technology from GemStone Systems, a Beaverton, Ore.-based data services infrastructure software company. The solution, GemFire Enterprise, will help the investment bank increase trading speeds and volumes, reduce risk computation times and, ultimately, create a better picture of risk, pricing and portfolio valuations across multiple asset categories, according to Richard Lamb, president, Gemstone.

"Bear initially brought us in to work with data in clearing and settlement and to build a risk and analytics system. The firm quickly took advantage of our technology to move data across a distributed environment quickly," he notes.

Bear's program trading department caught wind of the project in the back office and got involved because it needed "ultra high performance and low latency" working on the trading floor, explains Lamb. Now, the Gemstone applications are in production in Bear's program trading department, yielding benefits that the investment bank hadn't been able to achieve before, Lamb claims. The new infrastructure component will enable Bear Stearns to improve data management in multiple formats across several operating environments while reducing data latency and data bottlenecks, he adds. Bear Stearns officials declined to be interviewed for this article.