Andrew Yu

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  Byte and Switch - The Global Site For Storage... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 2/10/2004    Last Visited: 2/22/2005  

  According to Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure at CLSA, the EMC arrays are linked to the DWDM gear via a switch from McData Corp. (Nasdaq: MCDTA - message board).EMC's Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) is used to port data from EMC gear to McData's Fibre Channel director, which then sends it to the DWDM network.
  
  All this has improved efficiency at CLSA.In a statement in Cisco's press release, Yu claims the addition of DWDM has increased data replication bandwidth "six-fold with higher resiliency and at a cost of half as much as maintaining the existing system."
  
  Another brokerage spokesman, CIO T. Rajah, says in an EMC statement that the new SAN and replication software gives CLSA the ability to provide hot standby for all applications automatically, something that wasn't possible before."When Hong Kong was hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in April 2003, we were able to allow more than 50 per cent of our staff to work from home," he says.Further, the company's saving maintenance costs over its old distributed systems, he claims.

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  CORRECTING and REPLACING VERITAS Software Optimizes... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 2/23/2005    Last Visited: 2/23/2005  

  Third graph, first sentence of release should read: Andrew Yu, CLSA's head of IT infrastructure... (sted Andrew Yu, CLSA's director of infrastructure...).
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  Andrew Yu, CLSA's head of IT infrastructure, says ensuring applications run at peak performance is critical to the firm's daily business operations.CLSA's infrastructure contains an extensive financial research database, brokerage transactions, settlement systems and other internal functions that are business critical -- CLSA cannot tolerate downtime.The company's back-end applications and databases must be highly available with optimal response times to ensure traders can respond quickly to market developments.
  
  "Our trading system is the heart of our business and application performance issues can quickly translate into lost revenue," says Yu.
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  "Using VERITAS software, we've seen a tremendous reduction in the average time needed to fix a performance bottleneck -- from three days to 10 minutes," says Yu."Now we rely on VERITAS i3 software to get to the bottom of performance bottlenecks in real time, without having to take our critical applications offline.Our previous approach was based largely on trial and error, and proved to be quite costly.VERITAS i3 software simplifies and consolidates the management of complex applications so we can proactively drill down to resolve availability and performance issues before they impact our traders and customers."
  
  VERITAS i3 software provides CLSA with unparalleled performance analysis and monitoring capabilities."We evaluated other products that looked similar on the surface, but they were not going to help us address our issues as deeply as VERITAS i3," adds Yu.

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  Cisco Systems News Release - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 12/17/2003    Last Visited: 12/27/2003  

  "Cisco and Hutchinson offered the best solution in terms of resiliency and cost savings," said Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure at CLSA.
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  We chose Cisco as our network solution provider, in part, because we trust in Cisco's ability to offer an efficient and cost-effective upgrade path as we move towards a fully converged infrastructure," said Yu.

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  Lightwave - fiber-optic communications, bandwidth... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 12/18/2003    Last Visited: 12/19/2003  

  "Cisco and Hutchinson offered the best solution in terms of resiliency and cost savings," asserts Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure at CLSA.

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  Newell Public Relations - A corporate technology... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/14/2003    Last Visited: 3/27/2004  

  "Cisco and Hutchison Global Communications offered the best solution in terms of resiliency and cost savings," said Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure at CLSA.
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  We chose Cisco as our network solution provider, in part, because we trust in Cisco's ability to offer an efficient and cost-effective upgrade path as we move towards a fully converged infrastructure," said Yu.

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  News @ Cisco: CLSA Boosts Network Infrastructure... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 12/17/2003    Last Visited: 12/18/2003  

  "Cisco and Hutchinson offered the best solution in terms of resiliency and cost savings," said Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure at CLSA.
  ...
  We chose Cisco as our network solution provider, in part, because we trust in Cisco's ability to offer an efficient and cost-effective upgrade path as we move towards a fully converged infrastructure," said Yu.

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  Resources >> Press Room - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 2/22/2005    Last Visited: 2/8/2006  

  Andrew Yu, CLSA's Head of IT Infrastructure, says ensuring applications run at peak performance is critical to the firm's daily business operations.CLSA's infrastructure contains an extensive financial research database, brokerage transactions, settlement systems and other internal functions that are business critical - CLSA cannot tolerate downtime.The company's back-end applications and databases must be highly available with optimal response times to ensure traders can respond quickly to market developments.
  
  "Our trading system is the heart of our business and application performance issues can quickly translate into lost revenue," says Yu.
  ...
  "Using VERITAS software, we've seen a tremendous reduction in the average time needed to fix a performance bottleneck - from three days to 10 minutes," says Yu."Now we rely on VERITAS i, software to get to the bottom of performance bottlenecks in real time, without having to take our critical applications offline.Our previous approach was based largely on trial and error, and proved to be quite costly.VERITAS i, software simplifies and consolidates the management of complex applications so we can proactively drill down to resolve availability and performance issues before they impact our traders and customers."
  
  VERITAS i, software provides CLSA with unparalleled performance analysis and monitoring capabilities."We evaluated other products that looked similar on the surface, but they were not going to help us address our issues as deeply as VERITAS i,," adds Yu.

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  Stepping into IP - Enterprise Networks Asia - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/1/2005    Last Visited: 7/6/2006  

  Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure at CLSA, admitted, "the technology [IP] was very new to us-it wasn't just like choosing an ATM network."
  
  After a selection process of eight to nine months, implementation of the new IP network commenced in August 2004.Completion of the network occurred by end of 2004.The network is completely owned and operated by CLSA and not operated as a managed service, noted Yu.
  
  The initial idea for the IP VPN emerged during Q3 of 2003, when SARS broke out, causing the brokerage to rejig its usual investors forum format and have a multiple site global video conference so speakers and visitors did not need to fly into Hong Kong.To support the video conferencing, a fully meshed ATM network was needed-which comes at a high cost, observed Yu.
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  Evaluating the technology and the right vendor was quite a challenge, acknowledged Yu."IP technology is very new to us, and the topology setup and the service models between the different vendors were very diverse," Yu added.
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  Yu attributed this to PCCW's uncertain situation with its Reach joint venture with Telstra, plus ongoing speculation about its other fixed network assets.
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  Currently Equant is the provider of that network and CLSA is reviewing the situation, with the contract ending in the middle of 2005, noted Yu.
  
  Right now the IP VPN is used primarily for video conferencing and for voice services between the connected sites.So far no data replication has occurred on the new network but plans are in place to have this happen later in the year.
  
  Before any decision is made regarding any potential migration of core data to the IP network, there are many factors still to consider, Yu stressed.Does the brokerage stay with a multiple vendor approach for its networks or go with a single vendor?Can the IP network, while performing well with current multimedia applications, sustain the performance when trading transaction data is added as well?
  
  And what if ATM costs fall significantly, which would negate any cost saving that a wholesale migration to IP would be expected to bring?These were all key questions that had to be answered first before any commitment to IP was made, Yu noted.
  
  Also to be considered was whether going with a single vendor would be a wise choice, which was implied if the bank decided to migrate completely to the new IP network."We find that most core network outages are caused by software, [from] a single vendor," stated Yu."By having multi-vendor support, the risks of outage are reduced."
  
  While cost savings were a factor in pushing the brokerage towards IP, Yu was keen to stress the investment in an IP VPN was not just based on cost cutting.He highlighted network performance and more flexible management as key drivers for its implementation.
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  Any migration to an IP network must be carefully considered and while almost all agree that IP networks will be at the core of most enterprises in the future, deciding on the move to IP depends on the critical nature of the network, noted Yu.
  
  He stressed the need to look hard into the network topology of any IP offering."See what kind of diversity is offered, what failover is available-does that actually suit your needs?"mused Yu.

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  Telecom Asia - Metro lightwaves - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/4/2004    Last Visited: 3/4/2004  

  That's some time away, but Andrew Yu, head of infrastructure for CLSA, admits that the lack of a Cisco reference deployment in Asia was a problem.
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  "If the bandwidth was enough we would not need a ‘local' HA solution, that is the hardware in the DR center can also be used to provide HA during normal operations," Yu said.
  
  "We also thought a more economic solution would become available and we could combine the data transfer and data replication together using DWDM."
  
  That was what actually happened, and apart from briefly considering CWDM (coarse WDM), DWDM was always the most likely solution.The problem with CWDM was that it "heavily depends on the fiber length between here and the secondary data center," Yu explained.Some carriers, like HGC, can support it, but not all, especially around Asia.Not all carriers can provide fiber path that is short enough for CWDM.
  
  The other attraction about DWDM was price."It was really expensive before, quite unaffordable, I would say," said Yu."But in this case, the price has come down a lot, and it now costs even less than what we need to support both the ESCON and data.If you take the IP network between Kowloon and here, and take the different application links, together, the cost is nearly half.It's pretty amazing."
  
  The new deployment can be upgraded all the way to 10 Gbps."With HGC, we managed to build up local fast Ethernet ring, and we managed to improve resilience of linkage between our branch and Hong Kong data center a lot," Yu says.
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  Back in Hong Kong, CLSA is considering the separation of its data center from the people centre, which might require managed fiber channel approach worldwide, says Yu.However, he adds that dark fiber is still quite expensive in most Asian countries, if available at all.

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  Veritas to help CLSA optimize trading applications -... - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 2/23/2005  

  "Our trading system is the heart of our business and application performance issues can quickly translate into lost revenue," says Andrew Yu, CLSA's director of infrastructure.

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