Datacom Systems – a vendor of network taps and matrix switches – has appointed Kevin Formby as its new president and CEO. Formby joins from packet capture/latency monitoring specialist Endace, and as such brings with him much experience of the financial markets vertical in general, and low-latency infrastructure in particular. On the heels of Formby’s on-boarding, Datacom has introduced a new matrix switch targeted at co-location environments.
Formby took up the rains of the Syracuse, NY-based company on February 1 and says the opportunity to lead such a company was a big attraction to him. He had been VP of business development at Endace since the middle of 2010, and worked at BT’s Radianz network and proximity centre unit before that. At Datacom, Formby’s mission will be to raise the company’s profile, hone the sales and marketing process, and to direct specific product development efforts for specific verticals.
For sure, financial markets will be one vertical to get attention says Formby, who notes the introduction of the company’s new SingleStream 2222 matrix switch, allowing a co-lo service provider or trading firm to readily and passively tap into as many as 80 1gE and 10gE network connections, to feed network and latency monitoring devices, such as those from Endace, Corvil, TS-Associates, etc. Less than five nanoseconds of addition latency is inserted into the tapped connection.
Formby says that the new switch – along with its sister 2212 offering – is running in production at a major co-lo service provider, who has not sanctioned publication of their name. But he can say that it’s being used to monitor more than 100 10gE connections supporting electronic trading applications.
