Condor In Flight at The Hartford

1. Condor In Flight at The Hartford 2006 Transformations Condor Week 2007 Bob Nordlund

2. About The Hartford… • Headquartered in Hartford, CT • Founded in 1810 • Fortune 100 • 31,000 employees worldwide • $26.5 billion revenues • $2.9 billion core earnings • $377.6 billion assets under management

3. The Hartford’s Businesses • Property & Casualty • Auto, home, marine, workers compensation, etc. • Retail Investment Products • Variable and fixed annuities, mutual funds, 529 college savings plans • Retirement Plans • 401(k), 403(b), 457 • Institutional Financial Solutions • Individual Life Insurance • Group Benefits • International

4. A Brief History… • Exponential growth in risk modeling activity exceeded existing computing capabilities. • Grid technology was identified as a possible solution. • A pilot program with a commercial grid provider was started. • In parallel, a ‘skunkworks’ Condor implementation was evaluated as an alternate approach. • Condor was selected over the commercial provider. • Windows Support • Simple, Scalable, and Flexible • Active Community • Free

5. 2006 Transformations • GRAPE • Condor 6.8 Upgrade • Accounting and Usage Reporting • GridMC • User Community

6. GRAPE Challenge(Global Risk Analysis Projection Enhancement) • Prepare comprehensive risk analysis report for all products for investment analysts. • Run three orders of magnitude more projections through the system. • Perform stochastic on stochastic on stochastic analysis. • 2.4 billion individual simulations.

7. GRAPE IT Response • Infrastructure • 500 dual-core, dual-CPU AMD servers • 20 Racks • Dedicated GigE switches • Condor pool with HAD • 4 filers with 8TB of storage • Purchased, installed and configured in 6 weeks • Application • Java-based liability model • 75x performance gain • Meta-scheduling application • In-memory market scenario generation

8. Condor 6.8 Upgrade • Dual version Condor MSI installation • Centralized configuration management • Multiple schedulers • 6.8 shadow process overhead • Load balancing scripts • Scheduler coordination • Accounting Groups • SOAP based submission • Mixed Linux Scheduler/Windows Execute • High Availability Central Managers • 1000+ desktops, notebooks, and workstations

9. Accounting and Usage Reporting

10. GridMC (Grid Management Console) • Web-based view of the grid • Administrative tools • Configuration management • Policy management • Condor Daemon Management • User-priority / Group Quota Management • User tools • Job submission • Job control • Prioritization • Job Monitoring • Grid utilization • Usage Reporting

11. User Community • Weekly user group meetings to discuss issues, planned usage, allocation trading. • Users own the grid, IT provides care and feeding • Promote ‘good’ behavior by highlighting ‘bad’ behavior. • Users who don’t want to share can’t take advantage of others who do – and are prominently displayed on usage graphs as ‘exclusive’. • Shame and ridicule can be effective tools to manage a grid. • Avoid draconian policies by providing transparency to users and letting a cooperative community evolve.

12. Our Condor Environment… • In production since 2004 • Three pools (GRAPE, GA, Test) • Dedicated and non-dedicated execute nodes • ~1000 Two-socket, dual-core HP x86 servers • ~1000 desktops, notebooks • Linux central managers with HAD • Linux and Windows schedulers • Windows execute nodes

13. Conclusion • The GRAPE project won The Hartford’s 2006 Chairman’s Award • Condor has been a transformational technology providing users access to capabilities they wouldn’t have otherwise had – or can now live without. • Grid computing is an integral part of our business and places The Hartford in a leadership position with respect to risk analysis in our industry. • Condor has proven to be an invaluable asset and has time and again handled whatever challenge we’ve thrown at it.

14. Thank you Condor Team!