Intel Snaps Up Fulcrum Microsystems
Intel is acquiring Fulcrum Microsystems, a developer of interconnect chips leveraged by ethernet switches, such as those from Arista Networks, IBM System Networking (Blade Network Technologies, as was) and Mellanox. While Intel’s big play is all about data centre fabrics and cloud computing, the impact on low-latency networking for the financial markets is clear, given...
Not Much Ado About …
Something or nothing? I guess it depends on one’s POV. I’m referring to today’s deadline for implementing SEC rule 15c3-5 – aka the Market Access Rule – which bans naked sponsored access. While parts of that rule – related to aggregated risk and covering fixed income securities – now do not need to be complied...
A Low-Latency Rock Battle on Bleecker …
We’re always happy to help out an old friend and a good cause. In this case, music loving Joe Lalicata – one-time Lava Trading and Merrill exec, and now Direct Edge’s partnership’s guy – who is holding a friendly battle of the bands tomorrow night at Kenny’s Castaways on Bleecker Street. Proceeds to the Wounded...
Two Years in Austin – the Low-Latency Capital of the World?
OK, I jest a bit with that headline. But it was two years ago this weekend that my good friend Allan Nixon (he used to work alongside me at Waters many years ago) and I rented a U-Haul and took a road trip from Brooklyn to Austin, Texas. In the back of the van were...
The Business Benefits of Lowering Latency – What Are They?
There’s much talk of late about whether investment in reducing latency is worth it. OK, that’s expressing this issue very simply, but for sure there is more focus on determining actual business benefits resulting from lowering latency, and the associated technology costs. One global investment bank turned to Sumerian to help them bridge business and...
Low Latency and Windows – Strange But True?
Reading through the latest from TS-Associates, it was interesting to learn that their Application Tap function now supports Windows, from the makers of Xbox. It got me thinking about how widespread the adoption of Windows is for low-latency applications, so I asked the company’s CEO Henry Young for his thoughts. “There is a surprising amount...
A Low-Latency Lap of SIFMA
Well, I’ve actually completed a few laps of the exhibits over the past couple of days. There’s no doubt the show was once again smaller than before, but the world of low latency was still pretty well represented. Here are some notes from what I’ve seen … * Content providers were few and far between....
Dell Touts Performance of its TIBCO FTL Stack
The low-latency arms race continues … Dell used SIFMA to promote the performance of its servers running TIBCO’s latest FTL (Faster Than Light) messaging middleware. The bottom line: 2.5 million messages/second processed with a mean latency of 13 microseconds. At the show, Dell execs pointed to a just-released STAC-M2 benchmark report, only the second to...
Welcome Back Tibco!
No apologies for the headline. It’s not meant to suggest any favoritism towards the company, but rather to signal my delight that the low-latency messaging space is about to get even more competitive. And that’s going to drive down both latencies and the cost of messaging systems. All good stuff, methinks. But my excitement is...
Tibco Releases FTL – Aims to “Dominate” in the Front Office
With the release of its low-latency FTL messaging product, Tibco Software aims to “dominate in the front office,” a space where it got started in the mid 1980s and then became ubiquitous with its TIB and Rendezvous offerings. Having since diversified into the non-financial markets with a number of enterprise information products, the company is...