CUSTOMER SUCCESS: Chicago Board Options Exchange is Bullish on Business Service Management from BMC Software

BSM platform delivers IT efficiency, availability and performance to the largest U.S. options exchange

HOUSTON, April 27, 2009 – Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) is home to a uniquely dynamic trading environment. Alongside the iconic images of frenzied hand signals and open-outcry trading, CBOE leverages a state-of-the-art electronic trading platform, much of which is underpinned by BMC Software’s (NYSE: BMC) Business Service Management (BSM) platform.

The largest U.S. options exchange, CBOE’s daily trading volume has totaled nearly 10 million contracts at its peak. Consequently, the Exchange relies heavily on a strategic IT management approach that not only supports high availability and performance, but also allows CBOE to continuously enhance its trading platform, expand customer reach and grow its competitive position.

“Open outcry trading is still here, but an increasing amount of our actual trades and income is derived from the electronics side of our business,” said John Strege, director of systems software at CBOE. “Standardizing on BMC Software’s Business Service Management platform gives us a comprehensive, business-service view that significantly enhances the efficiency of our IT organization, enabling us to roll out new and enhanced functionality more quickly. What’s more, we have a single source to help us resolve issues and provide support when needed.”

While CBOE trading hours align with those of the U.S. stock market, the IT environment has around-the-clock requirements including backend data processing and maintenance for hundreds of critical application servers. CBOE addresses these needs with an array of BMC solutions that deliver:

• 24/7 Availability: BMC CONTROL-M automates batch scheduling for nightly data warehouse loads that combine more than 100 individual jobs with dependencies spanning internally generated business data and industry market data culled from other exchanges.
• High Performance: BMC Service Assurance solutions prevent service disruptions by quickly identifying and resolving application bottlenecks and performance issues.
• Efficient IT Service Management: BMC BladeLogic Operations Manager automates repetitive tasks to boost productivity, trim costs and reduce risk associated with rolling out new application releases. Additionally, BMC Remedy IT Service Management gives CBOE an integrated solution for service desk, problem, change, and asset management that’s compliant with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices.
• Seamless Enterprise Management: The BMC Atrium technology platform serves as the point of integration for all BSM solutions, enabling CBOE to link IT processes together through a common repository with graphical, business-relevant views into the IT Infrastructure.

“CBOE has a long history of applying IT in innovative ways to enhance market quality and provide ease of access to a diverse mix of products,” said Paul Avenant, BMC’s vice president for Enterprise Systems Management. “As a long-time BMC customer, CBOE shows the power of BSM to help our customers deliver new services that enable them get a leg up on the competition.”

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