Ubuntu Stability For Trading

[Gilles Gravier]

Hi, John!



On 03/02/2012 15:35, John Law wrote:
> Hi
>
> I am setting up some trading desks for a newly set up fund. Our
> trading platform runs entirely on Java in web browsers. I am
> considering if Ubuntu is stable enough for such a task or would other
> distros, BSDs be a better choice.
>
> The desk would be used by traders to place trades and not for
> algorithmic trading. It would based on Intel i5, 8G RAM and 2
> monitors.
>
>
> John

The porting of the JVM for BSD is purely community developped and
supported. You might not get the full support you want for it, or the
latest versions.

There are significant differences in JDK 6 between the official Oracle
JDK and OpenJDK. With JDK 7, OpenJDK is now the official reference
implementation, so not a problem anymore...

If you are going to bet your business on an IT solution, I would take
one with the best support available. Ideally with an option from the
vendor itself. So Ubuntu is a great candidate. BSD (however stable and
efficient an OS it is - but you have to ask yourself which BSD - NetBSD,
OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BSD386...) I would definitely go for a Linux
distribution. And one like Ubuntu is perfect. You can get support from a
local partner or Canonical themselves if you want to talk to god rather
than its saints.

If you want a fully supported one, you can get the latest build from :
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

Or you can use the one in the repositories. I find the one in the repo
is a bit outdated, but nothing dramatic.

Gilles