Reuters, Intel, HP, Voltaire Push Lowest Latency Configuration … and STAC Benchmark
Reuters, Intel, HP and Voltaire are collaborating to pitch what they say is the lowest latency offering based around Reuters Market Data System (RMDS). The Infiniband-based tuned configuration reduces the overall system latency by as much as 48 percent (compared to an ethernet-based configuration), according to independent testing by the Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC).
The optimized configuration consists of Reuters Market Data System and the Reuters Tick Capture Engine (RTCE) installed on HP Proliant Bladesystem c-Class servers with Intel Xeon processors and Voltaire Grid Director Infiniband-based switches with Voltaire’s data acceleration drivers. According to Voltaire vice president of marketing Patrick Guay, his company worked to tune its drivers to work optimally with RMDS, although no modifications to RMDS are required to support the configuration.
STAC benchmarked the configuration, also including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.4, and noted: “The reduction in latency is clearly visible and the differential appears nearly constant at rates over 20,000 updates per second. Considering this in terms of European equities, we see that the Voltaire Infiniband cuts up 48 percent of the latency at 20Kups, which is a reasonable estimate for today’s European equity traffic. This amounts to slightly over a quarter millisecond. At 300Kups, the latency savings is more significant in absolute terms, 299 microseconds.”
The complete report from STAC is available here. 
While the configuration is not a product per se, Reuters executive vice president and global head of information management systems Michael Parlapiano says the companies would work together to offer solutions based on the configuration, and that the close working relationship they have formed means that multi-vendor customer support issues should be minimized.
Technorati Tags: reuters, intel, hp, voltaire, stac, rmds, infiniband
