Latency measurement for Financial Services
With our globalised systems, the emergence of algo (algorithmic) and high frequency trading as well as dark pools, time is everything. Or more accurately, the lack of it. Its logical – if you can’t execute fast enough to seize the market moment then there’s no point in having the best trading algorithms in the market. Which is exactly why organisations are increasingly focusing on identifying and removing latency from their operational trading networks.
To understand what’s causing trade latency it’s vital to be able to measure what’s going on to a very high degree of accuracy. After all, if performance cannot be measured, then improvements cannot be made. Without accurate measurement the only indicators of poor network performance are missed opportunities, irate traders and stressed IT staff.
As the trading industry creates newer, faster, more efficient protocols and trading techniques, latency in the end to end system invariably creeps in and slows it all down. Hardware upgrades yield performance benefits on the surface, but they don’t typically solve the real systemic issues affecting the network. Whether it’s multi-cores, faster memory or faster disks, processing systems can only do so much. The key is total end to end visibility of the latency across the entire trade transaction.
Endace’s packet capture and platform offers the most robust and accurate passive packet time stamping capability on the market today, which has made it a natural choice for organizations seeking to both measure and reduce latency from their trading architectures.
Our Architecture has been used to deploy a number of best-of-breed commercial applications including products from Correlix and SeaNet
Correlix high-performance Latency Measurement
Working with Correlix, the market leader in latency measurement and intelligence, we have created a solution that passively monitors delays at any point from exchange to execution, without adding any latency to the traffic itself. This enables you to isolate the problem areas, address them directly and minimize future unpredictability.
Endace's Probes provide the ideal platform to passively capture and precisely timestamp every packet as it traverses the network allowing latency to be identified and measured accurately. Because our capture technology is passive, this measurement can be done without adding latency as part of the measurement process - regardless of type or speed of the network being measured.
Our solutions also ensure that measurement isn’t used solely to improve network performance but also to assist with regulatory compliance mandates for Reg NMS and MiFID.
Correlix Latency Intelligence
The Correlix Latency Intelligence application enables multiple operators to track, log and view alerts through user-customized layouts. The application provides automatic support for all consolidated and DMA feeds plus liquidity sources without impacting performance.
As the network evolves the application intelligence grows with it, automatically discovering and correlating changes to the trading environment. Deploying Correlix on top of the Endace Platform creates a threshold aware system capable of detecting and reporting on what is actually happening rather than what is thought to be happening.
Correlix Latency Intelligence supports:
- Multiple users
- Real-time process views into order flow
- Volume sensitivity
- System processing times
- Liquidity venue response time
Early warning system
Using Correlix’s unique message correlation technology, transactions are automatically discovered as they pass across the enterprise IT environment. By tracing transaction instance and analysing performance in the different transaction tiers (as well as the ability to quickly configure for proprietary and customized systems and protocols), lets you perform rapid trend analysis and gives you early anomaly alerts before they escalate and affect business performance.