IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE), the leading electronic energy marketplace and soft commodity exchange, announced the relocation of its technology operations and support systems to Chicago, beginning in June 2007. The relocation includes a staged transition from London- and Atlanta-based locations to Chicago for ICE’s back-up trading facility and its primary data center that supports the electronic markets for ICE Futures, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) and ICE’s global over-the-counter markets.
The ICE disaster recovery site will relocate to Chicago as of June 1. 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 an unanticipated incident.
As part of ICE’s ongoing performance enhancement strategy, beginning in late 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. Customers who are co-located or have a direct connection to the Atlanta data center will receive support from ICE’s technology team to facilitate the transition of connections to the primary data center in Chicago.
“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. “As we near completion of this state-of-the-art hosting facility, we’re offering our customers continued technology enhancements, along with a broad range of connectivity options that will optimize bandwidth usage and reduce connectivity costs.”
ICE currently provides its customers with several connectivity options. In addition to the ability to access ICE’s markets via the Internet, ICE offers a managed co-location program, as well as point-to-point connectivity with points of presence, or POPs, in five cities, including Chicago, New York, London, Singapore and Atlanta. These POPs facilitate connections to both the primary and back-up data centers over the ICE global network.
Additionally, to ensure ICE is providing optimal bandwidth solutions, faster turn-around from circuit order to installation, and the ability to more easily and cost-effectively upgrade bandwidth, ICE will decommission its existing WAN solution (ICE Direct) effective December 31, 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.
About IntercontinentalExchange
IntercontinentalExchange® (NYSE: ICE) operates the leading global, electronic marketplace for trading both futures
and OTC energy contracts and the leading soft commodity exchange. ICE’s 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. ICE® conducts its energy futures markets through its U.K. regulated London-based
subsidiary, ICE Futures, Europe’s leading energy exchange. ICE Futures offers liquid markets in the world’s leading
oil benchmarks, Brent Crude futures and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude futures, trading nearly half of the
world’s global crude futures by volume of commodity traded. ICE conducts its agricultural commodity futures and
options markets through its U.S. regulated subsidiary, the New York Board of Trade®. For more than a century, the
NYBOT® has provided global markets for food, fiber and financial products. ICE was added to the Russell 1000®
Index on June 30, 2006. Headquartered in Atlanta, ICE also has offices in Calgary, Chicago, Houston, London, New
York and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.theice.com and www.nybot.com.
