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The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A Tale of Two Benchmarks – for STAC-M3 and kdb+

This week saw the publication of two “M3” benchmarks conducted by STAC, covering time-series management solutions. And while both relate to Kx Systems’ kdb+ database (apparently to date the only database to have published M3 benchmarks), comparing them would be an apples to oranges exercise. STAC-M3 is focused on solutions that manage large amounts of...

Cisco Introduces 40 Gig Switch, PTP and Buffering Stats

Cisco Systems has added the Nexus 3016 switch to the lineup that it’s pitching at low-latency financial trading. It’s Cisco’s first to support 40 gigabit per second ethernet communications, which reduces network serialisation latency. The 1RU 3016 features 16 ports, each of which can be operated at 40 gigabit per second, or alternatively at 4...

Nasdaq OMX Preps UltraFeed – for Equities, Options and Futures

NYSE Euronext has SuperFeed, so it’s perhaps no surprise that rival Nasdaq OMX is planning next year to release UltraFeed – a consolidated feed of North American equities, options and futures trade and quote data. And it’s enlisted Quodd Financial Information Services as its first customer and redistributor. UltraFeed will be a normalised data feed...

Activ Adds Emerging Markets, FX … Looks Beyond Latency

Activ Financial has been busy in the feed handler department, having recently added a bundle of emerging markets to its offering, as well as expanding its foreign exchange service. The company’s goal is to build out its global coverage both in terms of geography and asset class coverage as it looks beyond the “saturated” world...

Hardware Acceleration – A Roundup and Update with Nomura, Burstream and Fiberblaze

What’s been happening in the world of hardware acceleration of late? Despite a couple of killjoys on LinkedIn who reckon it’s still unproven technology, the answer is – quite a lot. It was good to get an update from the coalface a couple of weeks ago at our London Low-Latency Summit. There, I chatted to...

Eliminating Latency with Analytics

Latency is a continual challenge in trading systems. In High Frequency Trading (HFT) systems, the challenge is immediate and obvious: if your order isn’t in first, you won’t hit the liquidity you’re after. In other systems, it might not be so obvious, but it’s still an issue. For example, if you’re streaming FX quotes out...

Q&A: Bruce Tolley of Solarflare Communications on Network Performance and Precision Timing

In ultra low-latency trading systems, the application to network interface is one cause of significant latency and jitter. Companies like Solarflare have advanced network adaptors designed to overcome those issues. IntelligentTradingTechnology.com got the scoop from Solarflare’s vice president of solutions Bruce Tolley. Q: Firstly, by way of introduction, what are your main products that are...

Q&A: Redline’s Mark Skalabrin on Goldman, and Why Cell is Better!

It’s not often one hears about vendor wins at publicity-shy Goldman Sachs, so it was intriguing to learn how they’re making use of hardware acceleration. IntelligentTradingTechnology.com caught up with Mark Skalabrin, CEO of Redline Trading Solutions, to find out more about the deployment, and why Cell processors rather then FPGAs are in vogue at Redline....

Top Seven Low Latency Technology Advances

Technology in the Capital Markets changes quite rapidly. In order to stay competitive, business and IT leadership must learn about new approaches, techniques, technologies, and how to integrate it all together. Whether your role is as an architect, vendor, developer, analyst, or decision maker, it is vital to gain an understanding of these new areas...

Celoxica Extends FPGAs to Transactions, HFT Futures

With the release of its latest Container offering, Celoxica – an early adopter of FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) technology for market data feed handling – is extending its functionality to handle transactional messages, such as outbound orders. The focus of this new functionality – says Celoxica president Lee Staines – is to support trading...