Low Latency News

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Archive for May, 2009

CFN Services Expands to Provide Low Latency Options for Toronto

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Herndon, VA June 1, 2009 (PRWeb) CFN Services, the leader in Low Latency Network Solutions, is now expanding their offerings into Toronto. CFN is offering the lowest latency connections for global markets to key Toronto exchanges: Alpha Trading, Pure Trading, Omega ATS, MATCH Now, TMX Group, and Chi-X Canada. Now traders globally can receive a trading advantage in Toronto by partnering with CFN Services.
CFN is a leading ultra low latency and custom fiber optic network integrator in the financial industry; offering specific Ultra Low Latency solutions for the trading areas in Toronto, Chicago, New York/ New Jersey Metro, Washington DC, London, and Frankfurt.  CFN is recognized as the only network provider to offer a Latency Level SLA along with a Latency Improvement Plan. CFN Services sets themselves apart from other transport vendors by offering carrier neutrality, professional services, fully managed services and the ability to design and implement custom fiber networks.
“We are seeing a transformation in trading on Canadian markets as ATS’s like Alpha, Pure, Chi-X, Omega, and dark pools are challenging TMX Group’s historical dominance.  This transformation is providing fertile ground for global high frequency traders; particularly those throughout North America.  We are meeting the needs of these traders by providing our customers the best networking solutions to accelerate trading,” states David Conrad, Vice President of Sales. “We prioritize the routes and trading areas that are key to our customer’s success, and Toronto is now one of the areas that we will offer guaranteed low latency optimized network solutions.”

CFN Services’ FiberSource® Telecom Platform provide them the ability to view all available fiber, including that of Utilities, Carriers, Dark Fiber and Collocation Providers; in order to put together the optimal network routes or provide custom network solutions specific to a customer’s exact requirements and priorities. The key to the integrated solution provided by CFN Services is the ability to identify metro fiber, long haul and the collocation space to piece together the carrier networks onto one optimal path.  This translates into a networking performance advantage for an electronic trading firm. This allows CFN Services to be Carrier and Data Center agnostic, ensuring to provide the best solution based on latency, performance and stability not on relationships.
Trading Firms now have the ability to reduce Fiber Optic mileage, decrease latency and have confidence that your network decisions were made with the knowledge of all existing options.
About CFN Services
CFN Services is a managed telecom infrastructure services company providing network services for the Enterprise, Public Sector and Carrier Markets. Specializing in network planning, deployment, and managed services, including local access transport, low latency networking, and mobile backhaul optimization, CFN Services leverages the company’s flagship FiberSource® network planning and optimization platform. CFN Services has provided network planning and deployment services to some of the leading wireless and wireline network operators including Verizon, AT&T, Level 3 and Sprint.  For more information please see http://www.cfnservices.com.

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CFN Services Expands Network with Telx

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Offer Telx customers In New York and Chicago a complete, low-latency financial networking solution

Key Highlights:

  • New relationship joins CFN Services’ low latency network with Telx’s proximity hosting advantages.
  • CFN’s ultra low latency solution guarantees a round-trip connection between Telx’s NY metro and Chicago facilities that is at or below 16.6 milliseconds.
  • Telx customers gain direct access to a leading network integrator and design firm serving the financial services industry.
  • A common carrier-neutral stance provides CFN and Telx customers with optimal solutions.

NEW YORK and CHICAGO (May 27, 2009) –  Telx, one of the largest and fastest growing domestic interconnection and colocation data center operators, announced today that custom network provider CFN Services has added network nodes for its ultra low latency financial network in Telx facilities at 60 Hudson Street and 111 8th Avenue in New York City as well as in 600 South Federal Street in Chicago. These new nodes allow Telx Financial Exchange customers colocated in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago – including Telx customers colocated in the company’s facility at 350 East Cermak Street – access to CFN’s ultra low latency network, which guarantees speeds of 16.6 milliseconds or better.

The addition of CFN into Telx facilities helps Telx customers gain an optimized network configuration to ensure the ultra low latency for all pieces of the trading process from market data feeds, ticker plants, exchanges and other key trading platforms. These services can provide the competitive advantage that financial companies need to gain an edge in today’s market. CFN Services will also work to implement a customized plan to ensure that the network configurations are optimal based on each customer’s individual criteria.

“In the current market, financial services companies need every advantage available to thrive,” says Eric Shepcaro, CEO of Telx. “The suite of financial service providers and ultra low latency networks, such as those offered by CFN, are critical to our customers’ success. Telx remains committed to seeking out service providers who can help our customers realize their full business potential.”

In addition, the carrier-neutral stance adopted by both Telx and CFN provides added advantage for customers: by bringing a wide variety of service providers to the table to compete for your business, Telx helps customers get the lowest available service price with high-quality proximity hosting; while CFN creates custom networks utilizing optimal spans from available routes based on the customer requirements regarding latency, price, optimization, performance, and time to install.

“In addition to ultra low latency networking, CFN offers unique, performance-level SLAs that guarantee a specific latency today and network improvements that guarantee latency improvements over time,” said Wil Tirado Vice President of Engineering for CFN. “When obtained from within a Telx colocation facility, customers are assured a long-range business plan for growth that accommodates both current and future needs for decreased latency and increase space, power, and cooling over time.”

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About Telx
Telx is a world-class leader in providing interconnectivity solutions through their network-neutral and network rich, colocation facilities.  With over a dozen facilities in North America, Telx offers cost effective networking solutions for customers to seamlessly access diverse global networks and exchange information in a secure and reliable environment.   Over 600 leading telecommunications carriers, ISPs, content providers and enterprises rely on Telx’s world-class team to support their mission-critical global infrastructure needs and to create a global connectivity marketplace to dramatically expand their business growth opportunities.  Telx is a privately held company headquartered in New York City with facilities in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Miami, Phoenix, Charlotte, as well as Weehawken and Clifton, N.J. For more information about Telx, visit www.telx.com.

About CFN Services
CFN Services is a managed telecom infrastructure services company providing network services for the Enterprise, Public Sector and Carrier Markets. Specializing in network planning, deployment, and managed services, including local access transport, low latency networking, and mobile backhaul optimization, CFN Services leverages the company’s flagship FiberSource® network planning and optimization platform. CFN Services has provided network planning and deployment services to some of the leading wireless and wireline network operators including Verizon, AT&T, Level 3 and Sprint.  For more information, visit www.cfnservices.com.

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Asia Exchanges

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Here is an interesting site for those of you interested in the Asian Markets. This page includes a full list of all the Asian Exchanges, with contact information. Thanks to Asia ETrading.

http://www.asiaetrading.com/asia_exchange_contact_information.php

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Smart Proximity Hosting

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Proximity Hosting Can Only take you Half Way There

Zero latency is the optimal trading speed that all firms hope to achieve at some point. But until that can become a reality, there is a race to keep reducing latency from all aspects of the trading process. From the server to the messaging to the sending and receiving of data, each piece must be optimized to reach the goal of zero latency.  There are many avenues companies are looking at to reduce variables and risk to latency – one of those is proximity hosting.

There are data centers where the trader can actually collocate with the exchanges. For example, in Weehawken, NJ there is a data center that houses five major exchanges including: the American Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and BATS Trading. This is a way to ensure there is almost zero latency built into the trade to those exchanges. But it is not the complete puzzle. Even with proximity hosting to collocate within a data center that houses exchanges there are still external servers that play a role in the execution of the trade. These are the data feeds, the platforms, your proprietary content, and the messaging. Even the data centers that host the exchange as a simple cross connect, are rarely the only exchange a firm is trading on. So how do you close the gap?

While a firm may be trading a particular asset class and the majority of trades may be directed toward a single venue, the volumes and price-points on related exchanges play critical roles in execution decisions.  This means latency must be minimized from all data sources, not just the venue the majority of trades are placed on.  For instance, having the lowest latency on venue A, but being significantly behind the market on venue B or C could have disastrous impact on success of a trade decision.  It’s important then, to reach a delicate balance between the lowest latencies on all data sources and execution venues.

Where milliseconds and microseconds make a difference to the success of a trade strategy, the idea of Central Proximity hosting is to find locations that are central to most of the destination you need to access. There are a number of hosting locations within the NJ/NY trading area: Clifton, North Bergen, and Weehawken, NJ just to name a few that provide central proximity hosting. Central Proximity Hosting enables firms to locate within a few miles of all the locations and data a trade strategy needs for successful execution.  So that makes up half of the picture – how do you complete the race to speed-of-light transport?

The network provider does the rest. A Carrier is a good solution for the transport of data when latency and performance are important, but not critical. When latency reaches a level that’s critical to your success and your strategic advantage, you need a more agnostic approach to finding the best network. In working with each Carrier, they will provide you their “on net” best solutions between locations. This approach is not always the best solution for your specific needs. And it’s here that a network integrator offers you a measurable advantage comes into play.

The network provider that you partner with must be able to provide the lowest latency solutions for the metro ring and the longhaul. The network integrator you work with should be Carrier Agnostic, to ensure you are getting the optimal solution for your needs and not a solution based on the relationship an integrator has with a Carrier.   Some integrators, like CFN Services, can even go a step further. Beyond optimal solution recommendations for your specific strategy and requirements, they can also create new routes specific to your priorities. An integrator like CFN Services can actually utilize optimal spans of available fiber to create new fiber routes that do not exist along any single Carrier.

In the race to Alpha, the combination of Central Proximity Hosting coupled with the Low Latency Transport is key to your success.

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Nasdaq dark pool unveils new features

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

NEURO Dark, a new European dark pool to be launched on 11 May by multilateral trading facility Nasdaq OMX Europe, will offer IOI functionality, smart routing and new ‘internalisation’ order types.

Users of NEURO Dark’s smart order routing functionality, which sends any orders not filled in the pool to other non-displayed venues, will also be able to interact with indications of interest (IOIs) sent to the platform by its routing partners.

“The IOIs will contain rudimentary information on stock and side, and our routing partners will only be able to send us IOIs that can be executed against,” Todd Golub, executive director of European markets development, Nasdaq OMX Europe, told theTRADEnews.com.”

Owned by global exchange group Nasdaq OMX, NEURO Dark will offer smart order routing after its initial launch to both independent dark pools and brokers’ internal crossing engines. Routing to displayed venues is not planned until further clarification of dark-lit venue interaction from regulators.

NEURO Dark will also offer an internalised order type called SELF, which is designed for market participants that do not have their own internalisation processes. This will allow users to match orders against their own internal flow within NEURO Dark, and gives them the option to match against their own flow before opening orders up to liquidity from other clients on the platform.

“With the current focus on cost-cutting, people can use a proven platform to perform the internalisation function,” said Golub. “We are planning to integrate this with the routing service in the future.”

The charge for trades completed using the SELF order type will be 0.05 basis points per side. All other executions will be charged at 0.1bps. By comparison, Chi-Delta, the dark pool offering from rival MTF Chi-X Europe due to launch in Q2, will charge 0.3bps per execution.

NEURO Dark will run independently from the Nasdaq OMX Europe and will trade around 800 of the most actively traded European blue-chip stocks. Like its lit counterpart, it will be powered by INET technology.

The platform will use the reference price pre-trade transparency waiver under MiFID to exempt it from publishing bids and offers. Under this waiver, prices in the pool are pegged to the mid-point price of a “widely published and reliable source” – typically the prices on the relevant primary exchange. Using this waiver allows NEURO Dark to accept dark orders of any size, unlike the large-in-scale waiver, which requires orders in the pool to be a specific size relative to the stock’s average daily turnover and market capitalisation.

The arrival of NEURO Dark comes at a time of heightened activity in the European dark pool market. As well as the imminent arrival of Chi-Delta, NYSE Euronext launched its SmartPool dark MTF in February, while Baikal, the London Stock Exchange’s non-displayed trading platform, is set to start trading in June.

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Proximity Hosting Can Only take you Half Way There

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Zero latency is the optimal trading speed that all firms hope to achieve at some point. But until that can become a reality, there is a race to keep reducing latency from all aspects of the trading process. From the server to the messaging to the sending and receiving of data, each piece must be optimized to reach the goal of zero latency.  There are many avenues companies are looking to reduce variables and risk to latency – one of those is proximity hosting.

There are data centers where the trader can actually collocate with the exchanges. For example, in Weehawken, NJ there is a data center that houses five major exchanges including: the American Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and BATS Trading. This is a way to ensure there is almost zero latency built into the trade to those exchanges. But it is not the complete puzzle. Even with proximity hosting to collocate within a data center that houses exchanges there are still external servers that play a role in the execution of the trade. These are the data feeds, the platforms and the messaging. Even the data centers that host the exchange as just a cross connect, rarely are they the only exchange a firm is trading on. So how do you close the gap?

The idea of Central Proximity hosting is to find locations that are center to most of the locations you need to access. There are many hosting locations within the NJ/NY trading area: Clifton, North Bergen, and Weehawken, NJ just to name a few that provide central proximity hosting. Central Proximity Hosting is getting within a few miles of all the locations a trade needs to execute.  So that makes up half of the picture – how do you complete the race to speed of light transport?

The network provider does the rest. A Carrier is a good solution for the transport of data when latency and performance are important but not critical. When latency reaches the level of critical you need a more agnostic approach to finding the best network. In working with each Carrier, they will provide you their “on net” best solutions between locations. That is not always the best solution for your specific needs. This is where a network integrator comes into play.

The network provider that you partner with must be able to provide the lowest latency solutions for the metro ring and the longhaul. The network integrator you work with should be Carrier Agnostic, to ensure you are getting the optimal solution for your needs and not a solution based on the relationship an integrator has with a Carrier.   Some integrators, like CFN Services, can even go a step further. They not only can make recommendations as to the optimal solutions for your needs, but they can create new routes specific to your priorities. An integrator like CFN Services can actually utilize optimal spans of available fiber to create new fiber routes that do not exist along any single Carrier.

In the race to Alpha, the combination of Central Proximity Hosting coupled with the Low Latency Transport is key to your success.

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Telebriefing – Backhaul the Lifeline to 4G

Friday, May 1st, 2009

21-May
Focus: 4G
Backhaul the Lifeline to 4G
Jennifer Pigg, VP, Enabling Technologies, Yankee Group

Yankee Group research shows that 50% of mobile network failures today can be traced back to problems in the backhaul.  That’s today – mostly voice, little data, almost no video on the mobile network.  Backhaul is not only a bottleneck, it’s a kluge bottleneck.  Service providers, unwilling to put their voice traffic at risk are leaving it on expensive TDM backhaul solutions and offloading data traffic to a parallel packet network.  In this session, we look at today’s dominant backhaul solutions and explain how the service providers will eat up CAPEX dollars and bleed profits if they do not move to more efficient solutions.  We also handicap the solutions available according to how stable we believe the solutions to be in terms of cost, performance, and management, particularly in terms of QoS and SLAs.

Sponsored by, CFN Services cfn_blue_dot

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