Low Latency News

Herndon, VA (PRWeb) June 25, 2009, 2009 No longer can a trader meet their low latency requirements by just collocating in the same facility as the exchanges. The exchanges are spread out now, and so is the market data essential to successful execution of trading strategies. Traders need to find the optimal combination of space and network configuration that is central to the market data feeds and the exchanges they are trading on. That is why CFN Services is extending FiberSource Advisor® to include a Financial Services specific practice. Working with CFN Services FiberSource Advisor® to help meet low latency requirements allows Trading Firms the ability to focus resources on the trading environment, platform, messaging, algorithms and other essential key areas.  FiberSource Advisor® provides the trading firm a roadmap to optimize their network; helping plan and configure the optimal collocation sites, lowest latency networking solutions, and peace of mind achieved with full disclosure of all options available.
CFN Services 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 a growing number of financial centers globally including Toronto, Chicago, New York/New Jersey Metro, Washington, DC, London, and Frankfurt.  CFN Services sets themselves apart from other transport vendors by offering: carrier neutrality, FiberSource Advisor® professional services, fully managed services, and the ability to design custom fiber networks.
CFN Services specializes in designing, implementing and managing high performance, low latency fiber networks. CFN is a custom fiber network provider, not simply a supplier of circuits. This is a unique advantage to a trading firm, because CFN and their FiberSource Advisor® professional services, can assist in the overall plan and development of the financial network to ensure optimization based on each firm’s unique priorities for market data delivery, trade execution, clearing data, and internal IT operations. CFN Service’s FiberSource Advisor® offering provides sophisticated financial trading firms with multiple network configuration options that fully leverage their existing network investments while providing a growth path and simultaneously lowering latency.
As a spin off of CSX Corporation, CFN Services carries on a 20-year legacy in fiber network deployment and management. CFN Services’ proprietary FiberSource® knowledge-based platform delivers access to over 500 carrier networks globally including more than 100 submarine systems; providing direct visibility into all available dark and lit fiber options, collocation facilities, and metro fiber rings for optimal deployment to any global financial center worldwide. Through FiberSource Advisor® CFN Services’ combines its vast telecom knowledge base with extensive experience in lit and dark fiber network design and implementation to provide trading firms with an edge on all aspects of MAN and WAN network deployment. CFN’s engineers articulate and provide recommendations on optimal transport architectures across technologies including WDM, SONET, Ethernet, IP, and MPLS.  FiberSource Advisor® will help traders lower latency on their existing routes, while optimizing the overall transport network inclusive of future growth plans.
As David Conrad, VP of Sales at CFN Services has observed, “ Partnering with CFN Services and utilizing FiberSource Advisor® provides trading firms the confidence and assurance that they are getting the best network solutions to meet their unique needs. With a view to all available fiber, including that of Utilities, Carriers and Dark Fiber providers; we enable our clients to rapidly sift through a typically daunting array of network options and providers to get to the optimal solution based on their specific requirements. Working with CFN as an integrator ensures carrier neutrality and eliminates the typical network operator’s bias for their own, often sub-optimal, end-to-end solutions.”
For more information about CFN Services and FiberSource Advisor® www.cfnservices.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 please see http://www.cfnservices.com.
Contact: Judy May  – 703-788-6633; Judy.May@cfnservices.com

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.