Energy Exchange Consolidates In Chicago

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), a leading electronic energy marketplace, will consolidate its primary data center operations in Chicago, the company said this week. The relocation will consolidate a backup data center and its primary facility in a single Chicago site, with a staged transition of those services from existing data centers in London and Atlanta. ICE's data centers support electronic markets for ICE Futures, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) and ICE's global over-the-counter markets.

"As our business expands both globally and domestically, the location of our key technology infrastructure in Chicago ensures we are positioned at the center of the commodities trading community and near many of our largest customers," said Mark Wassersug, ICE Vice President of Operations.

The ICE recently launched a $9.6 billion bid to merge with the Chicago Board of Trade, topping an $8.5 billion bid by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

The data center consolidation commences June 1, when ICE's disaster recovery will relocate from London to Chicago. The disaster recovery system mirrors the ICE primary exchange system to enable a seamless transition of trading operations to a redundant platform in the event of a disaster or unexpected shutdown. In January 2008, ICE's primary data center will permanently migrate the hosting of its trading operations to Chicago from its current site in Atlanta. The current primary data center in Atlanta will then be utilized as the permanent disaster recovery site.

ICE is among the many financial exchanges are offering colocation space to trading firms. ICE currently offers a managed colocation program, as well as point-to-point connectivity with points of presence (POPs) in Chicago, New York, London, Singapore and Atlanta. These POPs facilitate connections to both the primary and backup data centers over the ICE global network.

ICE also is upgrading its existing WAN solution (ICE Direct) et the end of 2007 to take advantage of newer technologies. ICE customers wishing to utilize a fully managed network solution today have a range of choices of managed network providers including Radianz and Yipes.

IntercontinentalExchange markets offer access to a range of contracts based on crude oil and refined products, natural gas, power and emissions, as well as agricultural commodities including cocoa, coffee, cotton, ethanol, orange juice, wood pulp and sugar, in addition to currency and index futures and options.