ComStock Unveils New, Faster Data Distribution Network
By Alexa Jaworski
March 30, 2006 - Interactive Data Corp. (IDC) market data subsidiary ComStock today unveiled its next-generation data distribution network to meet ever-growing capacity demands and combat latency delays in systems that are making securities trading decisions at millisecond speeds.
Associated with the upgrade is a reengineered ticker plant that can handle 3 million messages per second, up from the previous 450,000. ComStock attributed the improvements to the introduction of a distributed architecture that allows data processing to be shared among hardware components that include more-powerful servers, as well as dual-core processing technology and the rewriting of core software applications.
"It's a little similar to people who were on dial-up moving to broadband," said Don Finucane, vice president of marketing and product management for Harrison, N.Y.-based ComStock. "We're pushing more data out to the customers, so they need a bigger pipe to get all of that data in a low-latency fashion. If we didn't expand the size of the pipe, you would get latency, and everything wouldn't be able to fit through at the same time. Latency has also become a very important factor for the industry, particularly as electronic trading and algorithmic trading have grown in popularity."
The new, high-speed Titan Data Network is designed to carry data at rates of up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps), compared with 42 Mbps on ComStock's IP4 network that was launched in early 2005. The Titan network, which utilizes the same underlying technical infrastructure as did IP4, is designed to more effectively manage rapid increases in data volume while maintaining low latency.
"The challenge for market data vendors like ourselves is to make sure we can keep up with the volume and that our systems don't choke," explained Finucane. "What we've essentially done here is twofold. At the ticker plant level we have expanded our system to process the increased number of messages per second that we're seeing from the exchanges, electronic communications networks [ECNs] and other trading venues. At the same time, we've built out a distribution network that can carry that amount of data out to clients that need the full breadth of the data that we carry."
Finucane noted that the new network does not make IP4 obsolete. It is "still viable and still works for the industry," he said. "We're looking forward and saying IP4 still handles all the bandwidth, and we need to be ready just because we've seen such huge shifts in market data volumes."
At 300 Mbps, the Titan Data Network is projected to accommodate the full breadth of PlusFeed, ComStock's high-speed data feed service, through 2008 data volume-level projections. PlusFeed currently encompasses more than 350 global exchanges and sources across all asset classes, including full tick coverage of options data from the Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA) and tick data from the major ECNs.
"We expect this rapid growth rate to continue in 2006, particularly in light of the recent volume projections we have seen from OPRA and market events like Regulation NMS," continued Finucane.
Delivered via a DS3/OC3 or other high-bandwidth connection, the Titan network is currently deployed at 50 Mbps, which is meant to reflect recent market-data levels while offering room for near-term growth. As volumes increase further and client needs evolve, the new network can be gradually ratcheted up to 300 Mbps. ComStock's clients that currently subscribe to the 42 Mbps IP4 network only need to add bandwidth to utilize the new network.
"Despite the massive increases in data volume, many of our clients will continue to require complete tick data with minimal latency," Mark Hepsworth, president of ComStock, said of the higher-speed tick facility. "We believe that the investments that we are making to expand our ticker plant and enhance our distribution technology will enable us to remain at the forefront of the real-time market data industry, while we continue to provide our clients with the level of service that they expect."
ComStock joins other market-data suppliers--from Bloomberg and Reuters Group down to niche data vendors such as Tullett Prebon Information and ticker plant providers such as HyperFeed Technologies--in taking technological steps to gear up for the demands of algorithmic and other high-frequency trading strategies. |
