Risksvr™ Financial Risk Manager Calculation Server

Foreword

Risksvr™ is specifically designed to make calculations as simple as risk management can be

If you want to test Risksvr™, you can run the engine directly by clicking on Run instead of Save when you download.

Get Started

Running your first analysis is easy!

One you press Download, click Run.

This launches Risksvr™ automatically.

If this is your first Run, a 2 page Wizard will guide you through setting up your Realm.

Once minimum setup is complete, the main Risksvr™ Tab will appear!

The first time you run Risksvr™ , a wizard will setup Realm path, name and alias for you!

In most cases, we recommend you accept the default values provided by the wizard.

Risksvr™ always needs a Realm to run on Windows OS.A Realm defines a hierarchical relationship of DataSources.

As it's name implies a DataSource defines the kind and type of data supplied to the engine.

Note:
As a beginner, this is really all you need to know about Realms and DataSources.
Intermediate and Advanced users can configure Realms and DataSources manually in the Settings Tab of Risksvr™'s main dialog. Once setup has been completed !
For more information on this topic see Realms and DataSources.

Computing Risks.

Running your First Analysis:
To run your first analysis you will need an open internet connection so Risksvr™ can retrieve data from the web server.
- - Either from the guest account if you are running as guest.
- - From your own personal realm if you are using an account.
Once setup is complete, you can proceed to run your first risk analysis by pressing compute.

You can disable internet connectivity by checking "Work-Offline" in the file menu

You can also manage individually each DataSource connection in the Settings dialog.

For example, you can choose to:
- Source correlations and volatilities from the web-server.
- Feed your own prices from Excel.
Configurations possibilities are unlimited once you understand how Realms and DataSources work together.

Running your second analysis:

There are three ways of managing data needed to run Risksvr™ .

You can fetch a copy of your data on the web server as explained above.
For this you can set up your own account. Setting up your personal account on www.risksvr.com is free or you can use the Guest account, The Guest account is only useful if you want to play around with the engine.
Download Financial-Risk-Manager and/ or [Unitized] TimeSeriesManager in order to produce trades, credit and market data and all other necessary terms and conditions independently from any other system.
This option is recommended if you are serious about Risk Management.
Once Financial-Risk-Manager is installed on your computer(s) you can take control and manage directly trades, analysis, credit terms and conditions. Once [Unitized] TimeSeriesManager has been installed you can take control and manage the entire Market Data Process.
By default, the Realm is configured so that it can be edited from an Text Editor(Notepad®, WordPad®, TextPad®,..., saved as raw ASCII) or from Excel® This features is very handy when you need to modify data rapidly for testing or benchmarking but is certainly not a medium or long term solution.

Introduction to Realms and DataSources

Realms and DataSources are advanced capabilities provided by all RiskServers FRM products.

As such they should only be of interest to intermediate and advanced users.

Data Sources and Realms are a brand new way of managing dependant hierarchies of complex data.
Realms and DataSources provide:

Countless configuration opportunities at the lowest entity.
Are easy to setup and use.
Offer tremendous analytic power.

Data Sources and Realms are unique to RiskServers products. To our knowledge no other product offers such a powerful and flexible approach to sinking and sourcing data.

A Realms is essentially an ordered hierarchy of DataSources. As its name implies, a DataSource defines the specifications of a source of Data.

Note: The Name DataSource is used interchangeably for both data sources (data from which Risksvr™ will read from and data sinks (data that Risksvr™ will write to.)

A default INPUT Realm is always expected.

This allows products to source and sink data. If no default input realm is defined the application will try in last resort the application's path.

A default OUTPUT Realm is always assumed. If not defined, the application will use the INPUT Realm.

The default Realm acts as the default data repository where data can either be stored or sourced.

Data Sources and Realms can seem daunting at first glance. The most important thing to understand at this stage is the concept of Default Realm and Default DataSource.

To Run, Risksvr™ needs at least a default Realm. If you accept the default settings, the default realm will be called Default. Each Realm Contains a Default DataSource for Input, usually called Input and a default DataSource for output called Output

Every Realm has a series of attributes. The most important are:

Attribute	Purpose - Application Example
Layout Schema.	Collates or Aggregates DataSource (s) individual Schema. You can define your own entity names. (for Interfacing with 3rd Party Systems)
Scope or namespace hierarchy.	Manages xml namespace definitions In case of payload data. realm names and xml namespaces are interchangeable.
Synchronization Policy.	How engine synchs. with each piece of data on www.risksvr.com (public) or your own In-house Web Server (private)

Each DataSource also carries attributes:

Attribute	Purpose - Application Example
Alternate Schema .	Each Individual DataSource can be customized. For example, EQUITYPRICE defines the DataSource of prices for equities, EQUITYSTOCHASTICS, defines equity volatility and correlations. The EQUITY DataSource aggregates both EQUITYPRICE and EQUITYSTOCHASTICS into an enhanced schema that avoids repetition and redundant identifiers
Input Layout	Define individual Input data Layout formats (name-value-pairs, xml,. csv.., raw binary) .
Output Layout.	The Output Layout format of each Source of Data. name-value-pairs, xml, csv...,raw binary).
Synchronization.	Defines data synchronization. Local-Web Web-Local Local Web For example: If the policy is [Local-Web] Local data is sourced. If no Local data is available, data is fetched on the Web Server and saved locally.
Scope or Fallback Policy.	Defines where data will be sought if it is not defined.
Traits	Date Type, Date Format, Decimal Separator , etc
Connector	File, Shared Memory, Sockets, named pipes, database connectors

DataSources are hierarchical, are relational and complete each other. .

The Default Realm is the location where the engine will seek data when all other sources of data are missing. (Folders, Sockets, shared memory, db, etc).
The Default Realm acts as the fallback location when data is missing from lower level realm(s).(if defined)
The name is the root of the realm .
The Alias is the name given to the entire Realm hierarchy.

Settings

The Settings tab provides a simple graphical user interface to Realms and DataSource Hierarchies and other settings specific to the module.

Working Online & Offline

Risksvr™ can work online, offline or in mixed mode.

Working Online
To work online you need a valid internet connection and an access to www.risksvr.com either through an active sign-up handle or a guest account.

Working Offline - Stand-Alone Mode
There are many ways you can work offline.

Download Financial-risk-Manager and or Unitized Time-Series Manager.
Use Excel(r) or any editor
Risksvr™ is designed so that you can easily work with a simple tab, csv, xml text-editor or Excel(R) spreadsheet
Remember Excel 2007(r) and previous versions have different ways of handling dates and string through mime/type file extension association.
Risksvr™ uses relative and absolute dates interchangeably. Editing data with Excel(R) is amazingly simple if you stick to the of relative dates and double quoted string as they are provided by default.
You can connect to your third party system either directly through the open database schema, DataSource or shared-memory DDE Server.

The internet connection is used to retrieve personal and common data from the server.

You obviously can produce this same data with RiskServers Financial-risk-Manager and Unitized TimeSeriesManager

Database Connection

Risksvr™ can work with or without one or multiple database connection(s). You will only need a Database connection if you are using Risksvr™ with Financial-Risk-Manager™ Suite or Unitized TimeSeriesManager suite of products

Minimum System Requirements

Currently Risksvr™ holds on 2.8 Mb of disk space. This highly compact footprint allows it to run on very tight configurations!

1. System Requirements for Installing Risksvr™

Processor	Minimum: 400 megahertz (MHz) Pentium processor Recommended: 1 gigahertz (GHz) Pentium processor Dual processor if used in real-time or near real-time. If you run risk on a real-time basis or near-real time basis, we recommend you use a dual processor so other tasks can be performed in the background
Operating System	Risksvr™ can be installed on any of the following systems: Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1) Windows XP SP2 Windows Vista
RAM	Minimum: 96 megabytes (MB) Recommended: 256 MB
Hard Disk	Up to 100 MB of available space may be required, depending on the amount of data stored.
CD or DVD Drive	Not required.
Display	Minimum: 800 x 600, 256 colors Recommended: 1024 x 768 high color, 32-bit

Risksvr™ Installation: Known Issues

2.1 Download Failure due to Aggressive Antivirus Policy

The download and installation of Risksvr™ might fail in rare circumstances due to antivirus false alarm. This problem does not occur with latest versions of most mainstream antivirus applications.

To resolve this issue

Update virus scanner.

– or –

Lower antivirus detection policy. Download again and Run.

Security Note:

All RiskServers executables are produced on highly security computers that meet stringent Communication Security requirements such as complete isolation from public or private networks, amongst others. Antivirus false alarm is due to Licensing and Anti Reverse-engineering counter-measures. Some of these measures produce special signatures that are interpreted as in very rare circumstances assumed to be a virus.

2.2 Risksvr™ fails to run analysis due to missing Trades message.

If your settings define a web-local synchronization policy setup you will need an active internet connection.

An active Internet connection is needed when you run Risksvr™ for the first time since it needs to download Market-Data (and possible Examples of Trades, Counterparties, Accounts and Credit Curves) needs to reboot, and the antivirus application is set to clean the Temp directory on launch, necessary setup files will be deleted and setup will fail with a program-not-found error.

To resolve this issue

Leave your Internet Connection on when you run Risksvr™ for the first time. You can then disable internet connection either by:

Selecting Work-Offline in the Settings Menu

- Or -

Open Settings and select Local as your default Input synchronization policy.