Supermicro, Intel and Micron Collaborate on Record-Breaking Results for the STAC-M3™ Quantitative Trading Benchmark

PRNewswire
San Jose (California) / New York [US], October 29: Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for AI/ML, HPC, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, today announced record-breaking results for the STAC-M3 benchmark, in collaboration with Intel and Micron, at the STAC Summit in New York City. STAC, an independent testing organization focused on the financial industry, leads the STAC Benchmark™ Council with over 500 financial services institutions and more than 70 technology companies participating.
* The STAC-M3 measures time-series database performance used in algorithmic trading and backtesting workloads
* Supermicro Petascale servers, Intel® Xeon® 6 processors, Micron™ 9550 SSDs and DDR5 memory, and KX Software's kdb+ database were showcased
* Results show that lower latency queries accelerate algorithm testing and increase the number of testable trading strategies
"The record-breaking test results are a testament to both Supermicro's workload optimized building block product design enabling us to achieve first-to-market leadership and our collaboration with leading technology providers Intel, Micron and KX Software," said Vik Malyala, SVP Technology & AI at Supermicro. "Supermicro prides itself on its close collaboration with leading industry partners and its ability to deliver the most leading-edge technology to customers to gain a competitive advantage. In the world of high frequency quantitative trading, the time-to-market and performance advantage we're able to deliver can be measured in our customers' trading profits."
For more information on Supermicro's Petascale servers, please visit All-Flash NVMe Servers for Advanced Computing | Supermicro.
The STAC-M3 benchmark focuses on real-time quantitative trading using simulated market bid-ask and settled trade data for thousands of assets. STAC-M3 is a full-stack benchmark including compute, storage, networking, and software in a multi-user environment. It measures query response time for scenarios often used in algorithmic trading, risk management and trade strategy backtesting commonly performed by banks, hedge funds, quantitative trading firms and trading exchanges. Large data volumes, low latency, and complex processing capabilities are common characteristics of high-frequency trading and analysis environments. Financial firms have a growing need to collect, store, and analyze more data than ever before. Tick data analysis helps firms quickly react to market changes to maximize profits and manage risk.
The STAC-M3 benchmark consists of two sets of tests, Antuco which measures performance based on a smaller dataset size and simulates the performance of a larger dataset, and Kanaga which uses a 20x larger dataset and larger number of concurrent users to match real-world conditions. The STAC-M3 audited results1 show that the configuration sets new world records on 19 of 24 Kanaga mean-time response benchmarks--including all 10 of 10 Kanaga 50 and 100 user benchmarks--and 3 of 5 Kanaga throughput benchmarks. In addition, 3 of 3 Antuco 50 and 100 user benchmarks also set new records.
"In high-frequency trading and analytics, managing large data volumes, maintaining deterministic low latency, and handling complex processing are vital. Financial firms must analyze billions of tick data points per day to respond to market changes, optimize profits, and manage risk effectively," said Srini Krishna, Intel Fellow, Head of Data Center Products. "Today's STAC-M3 results show Intel Xeon 6 delivering record-setting performance and efficiency--helping trading teams act faster, capture alpha, and assess risk with confidence."
The test configuration consisted of six 2U Supermicro storage servers for a total of 12U of rack space in contrast to previous record-holders which used two to four times more space (21U and 44U). With Intel Xeon 6 processors, the Supermicro dual-CPU Petascale server completed the compute-intensive 100-user unpredictable interval statistics benchmark 36% faster than ever before, all the while using 62% fewer CPU cores than the previous record holder. Despite using about half to a quarter of the rack space as previous record-breaking tests, the 12U 6-server configuration tested supported the highest storage capacity of 1.6PiB using performance-optimized Micron 9550 NVMe SSDs, which is more than six times the capacity of the next highest previous record.
"When trading securities in a rapidly moving market, microseconds can mean millions of dollars, making speed the ultimate currency. In audited STAC-M3 testing, Micron 9550 NVMe SSDs and DDR5 RDIMMs delivered exceptionally low, predictable latency under heavy I/O and compute-bound operations, turning tick data into insights faster than ever," said Alvaro Toledo, vice president and general manager for the Americas Core Data Center Business Unit at Micron. "Our technical collaboration with Supermicro, Intel and KX Software sets new performance records and gives traders the edge they need to win."
The six Supermicro Petascale all-flash storage servers used Intel Xeon 6 processors and Micron 9550 NVMe SSDs and DDR5 RDIMM memory. The SSG-222B-NE3X24R Petascale 2U storage server is Supermicro's latest generation high-performance storage server which features dual Intel Xeon 6 6700 series processors, up to 32 DDR5 RDIMMs and 32 E3.S NVMe PCIe Gen 5 storage bays. The system balances the PCIe Gen 5 IO to both the NVMe slots and up to 5 PCIe add-in card slots for networking and GPUs, to ensure optimal performance of the storage workload. The test configuration used KX Systems' kdb+ 4.1 high-performance columnar analytics database optimized for real-time and historical data.
"We're proud that kdb+ continues to power world-record performance in the STAC-M3 benchmarks--marking 15 of the last 17 global records," said Ashok Reddy, CEO at KX Software. "What excites us most is what these results mean for our clients and that true impact is measured not just in speed, but in how deeply we transform firms' trading and execution strategies. As trading systems evolve and data volumes surge, we remain committed to advancing performance, precision, and reliability--helping our partners push the boundaries of what's possible in quantitative trading."
The STAC-M3 benchmark test configuration featured:
* Six Supermicro SSG-222B-NE3X24R Petascale all-flash storage servers, each equipped with dual Intel Xeon 6767P CPUs (64 cores, 128 threads, max turbo 3.9GHz, 350W TDP),
* 16 Micron 128GB DDR5 RDIMMs (totaling 2.048 TB per system at 6400 MT/s),
* 24 high-performance Micron 9550 NVMe™ SSDs (12.8TB each), and
* KX Software's kdb+ 4.1 high-performance columnar analytics database optimized for real-time and historical data
For a full description of the test configuration used and the test results, see the STAC website here: https://docs.stacresearch.com/KDB250929.
For a more detailed analysis of the results, see the Micron blog.
The test results will be presented at the STAC Summit in New York on October 28. STAC Summit - New York | STAC.
About Super Micro Computer, Inc.
Supermicro (NASDAQ: SMCI) is a global leader in Application-Optimized Total IT Solutions. Founded and operating in San Jose, California, Supermicro is committed to delivering first-to-market innovation for Enterprise, Cloud, AI, and 5G Telco/Edge IT Infrastructure. We are a Total IT Solutions manufacturer with server, AI, storage, IoT, switch systems, software, and support services. Supermicro's motherboard, power, and chassis design expertise further enables our development and production, enabling next-generation innovation from cloud to edge for our global customers. Our products are designed and manufactured in-house (in the US, Asia, and the Netherlands), leveraging global operations for scale and efficiency and optimized to improve TCO and reduce environmental impact (Green Computing). The award-winning portfolio of Server Building Block Solutions® allows customers to optimize for their exact workload and application by selecting from a broad family of systems built from our flexible and reusable building blocks that support a comprehensive set of form factors, processors, memory, GPUs, storage, networking, power, and cooling solutions (air-conditioned, free air cooling or liquid cooling).
Supermicro, Server Building Block Solutions, and We Keep IT Green are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Super Micro Computer, Inc.
All other brands, names, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
1 For the full STAC report™, see www.STACresearch.com/KDB
https://stacresearch.com/KDB250929


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