WFIC Report: Pace Of Change A Challenge For Low Latency Systems
It’s not just update rates themselves, but the pace at which the low latency marketplace is changing and direct datafeeds are being updated that’s creating a big challenge for users, according to pundits on the “Traffic & Latency: The More Things Change …” panel here at WFIC today.
The panel - chaired by BT Global Financial Services‘ Kevin Formby - comprised Jeff Wells from Exegy, Mark Hepsworth from Interactive Data Real-Time Services and Mike Bournes from the London Stock Exchange. All agreed that the pace of change in the marketplace itself was creating challenges.
Mark Hepsworth commented that “volume increases are outstripping Moore’s Law,” referring to how simply boosting computing power to cope with increased market data rates is no longer viable. Other approaches - such as leveraging multi-core chips and parallel processing - are needed, he said, adding that this made software code more complex to develop.
Mike Bournes related how the LSE has needed to re-design its systems to cope with more frequent upgrades to boost capacity, adding that the exchange expected to implement a doubling of capacity in the next couple of months.
And Jeff Wells emphasized that it’s not just the US options markets that are driving up volumes. The New York Stock Exchange feed service recently saw a massive increase in peak volumes from around 50,000 updates per second to more than 160,000. That increase was down to the exchange adding capacity to its own systems, he noted.
Also discussed by panel members was the frequency of specification changes in direct datafeeds themselves, which make them onerous for end users to support. Thus, managed services, where the vendor supports feed specification changes by applying remote software updates, are likely to be much in demand.
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