Code Modernization: Doing More With More

Throughout civilized history there have been two immutable guarantees of life: Death and taxes. We can now add a third guarantee: There will always be an ever-expanding number of processors added to hardware, at least for the foreseeable future. So, now it is death, taxes and infinite processors – at least for the foreseeable future.

Given the simultaneous challenges of cost-efficiency and the need for constant differentiated improvement within capital markets, it is essential for the software developers within the capital markets community extract every bit of performance offered by the hardware. That means enhancing existing and future applications to leverage the ever-expanding number of processors and continuing advancements in parallel computing hardware.

There is no single absolute way to solve for code modernization and optimization. So much depends on the use case and the long-term requirements for your code architecture. It is wise, however, to be aware of and explore all levels of optimization for your needs today and in the future. Having said the above, the fundamental challenge to code modernization is finding development resources with the skills and experience to leverage highly parallel capabilities.

The skills challenge is often exacerbated within capital markets as today’s developers, in many instances, are not the code owner or creator of an application they may support. Capital markets have many applications that have been resident for several generations of programmers and that quite often creates an understandable reluctance to modify code in the manner needed to unlock the benefits offered by today’s hardware. One may turn to the Intel Modern Code Developer Community as one example of guidance of how to best leverage the advancements made in hardware.

Code modernization will provide material benefits today to the performance of your applications and will also provide bottom-line cost benefits through reducing the infrastructure footprint needed to deliver your application... Moreover, it is an investment in the future that will enable you to keep pace and maximize your hardware investments.