OptionsCity Software is leveraging the Zing Java Virtual Machine from Azul Systems to boost performance of its Freeway algorithmic trading and Metro market making systems. By taking advantage of Zing, the systems can take advantage of more robust, sophisticated and customised models, and predictable low-latency, to deliver better trading performance.
Zing is a 100% Java-compatible native JVM, optimised for Linux, which greatly reduces performance hiccups common in Java, caused by garbage collection (a background memory management function). Zing makes use of highly optimised compilers, as well as Azul’s Continuously Concurrent Compacting Collector (C4) technology, to implement pause-less garbage collection. Standard JVM garbage collection causes unpredictable application execution, a cause of jitter within low-latency systems.
Messaging specialist Informatica is also leveraging Zing. “Our interest in Zing lies in its ability to support ultra-low-latency messaging,” says Todd Montgomery, vice president, architecture, Messaging Business, Informatica. “In an era where every microsecond has value for high-frequency trading, the ability to deploy new functionality rapidly and know that it will perform consistently is essential.”
The just released Zing 5.2 adds support for Ubuntu Linux, and also introduces performance and latency reduction improvements, enabling performance gains for individual application threads by up to 50% and achieving garbage collection worst case latencies as low as 80 microseconds for tuned applications.
Also new in 5.2 is Zing Vision, a zero-overhead production-time application monitoring and diagnostics tool. Zing Vision – which runs inside the JVM – allows technologists to see what a Java application and JVM is doing during real-time operation.
Zing is compatible with – but competes with – Oracle’s own Java HotSpot JVM. It can support many-core architectures and gigabytes of RAM, making it a good choice for supporting high performance trading applications.
