Options continues to build out its Velocity infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), ultra-low latency electronic trading platform with the addition of Velocimetrics’ real-time monitoring and performance analysis solution. The companies have partnered to roll out the Velocimetrics software at Velocity colocation sites around the world, starting in the US with deployments in New Jersey.
Options recently added the nxFeed market data distribution system from hardware accelerated trading solutions provider Enyx to the Velocity platform and has enhanced the platform by transferring customer support to the Jira platform and replacing Cisco network switches with Arista switches that improve diagnostics and allow packets to be time stamped – a feature that extends the capability of the monitoring and performance analytics provided by Velocimetrics.
On Options’ choice of Velocimetrics, the company’s chief technology officer John Bryant explains: “We built a monitoring solution for Velocity to bridge the gap while we looked around the market for a partner that could deliver real-time monitoring and performance analysis, and keep track of changes to exchange mandates. As an IaaS provider we needed a product that worked more like a utility model than an appliance with a traditional cost base. We wanted to deploy our hardware in colocation facilities and overlay it with partner software, which is why we selected Velocimetrics.”
Paul Spencer, chief operating officer at Velocimetrics, endorses Bryant’s point on cost, saying: “Before the deployment of Velocimetrics, users of the colocated Velocity platform needed an additional rack and their own solution for real-time trading analysis. To do this colo by colo is expensive, so not very feasible. By offering real-time monitoring and analysis as a service, and integrating it with Options’ Velocity IaaS platform, real-time monitoring and analysis becomes more cost effective and the service can be scaled across numerous clients.”
The combined managed solution includes a portal providing a visual user interface and customer configurable dashboard for monitoring and performance analysis, with the Velocimetrics element carrying a recurring monthly fee. To date, the Velocimetrics software is in play on the Velocity platform at two New Jersey colocation centres hosting exchange matching engines serving options and equities markets, and there are plans to roll it out to Options’ other US colocation sites, which will soon include Mahwah and Aurora, before extending the service to the company’s colocation sites in Europe and Asia.
Bryant says: “Customers can use their own dashboards to see in real time the performance of their trading and market data activity. They can slice and dice the data as they choose and don’t have to wait for us to report to them on performance using our base layer. Velocimetrics provides traders with quality information to make quick decisions.”
For Velocimetrics, this is its first partnership to reach production deployment, but the company is discussing similar arrangements with other platform vendors and suggests managed services are the way forward for colocated operations.
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