Keeping latency in check is critical for quality of service (QoS) of demanding Ethernet wireless backhaul, wholesale and business services. Given that Ethernet bandwidth is considered relatively ‘inexpensive’, some providers increase throughput to reduce latency and keep performance within strict SLA tolerances. However, the relationship between bandwidth and latency is anything but simple in packet-based networks, where increasing throughput can sometimes have no effect on delay, or even increase it under certain conditions. This paper explores the key sources of delay, and techniques to optimize latency without consuming excess bandwidth. These guidelines allow providers to use their network resources as efficiently as possible, while assuring the QoS of critical, real-time services. Download Full White Paper Here

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By now there’s no doubt about it: mobile operators need to get their backhaul networks in condition to meet the burgeoning market for anytime, anywhere data access. Backhaul, once considered the humdrum side of an operator’s network, has become the topic du jour now that the mobile phone customershave shifted to smartphones and are taking advantage of data-hungry services in a big way. Earlier this month, AT&T reported that its wireless data traffic has grown more than 5,000 percent over the past three years, largely due to smartphones, which are used by about 40 percent of its post-paid customer base. All operators have to contend with this growth, and quickly: smartphones should represent the vast majority (65%) of phones sold in the country by 2012, according to Creative Strategies, an analyst firm. Operators are taking steps to prepare their networks to meet the expected demand, and the process of identifying specific backhaul needs and configuring the best solutions will force companies to bring the backhaul problem to the forefront of their infrastructure and business planning. This is a closer look at the available options and considerations operators must keep in mind as they prepare to build out this part of their networks.

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Low latency connectivity has enjoyed a resurgence of interest as high-performance trading architectures become a reality. Early interest in the low-latency ‘vision’ may have been interrupted by the global financial crisis, but no matter: low latency is back, and providing the catalyst for the explosion in high frequency trading.

As liquidity continues to fragment – in the US and globally – electronic trading operations are demanding connectivity to a broader array of execution venues. As well as traditional exchanges, traders today need access to alternative trading systems, including electronic communications networks, dark pools and multilateral trading facilities (MTFs). Securing and maintaining a robust, high-performance connectivity solution is key to providing comprehensive market access Download Now

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In 2010, financial markets participants will continue to expand their trading activities as liquidity increasingly becomes fragmented, seeking alpha in new markets, best execution in dark pools, arbitrage opportunities across the order book and by implementing high frequency and complex, multi-leg, cross asset class strategies.

The successful operations – whether they be the proprietary desks of traditional broker/dealers, specialist high frequency and algorithmic traders, or quantitative hedge funds –  will leverage a trading infrastructure that combines high performance analytical, algorithmic and order routing platforms with the lowest latency access to multiple, geographically dispersed execution venues.

Multi-market trading – leveraging a fragmented market landscape – introduces new challenges, even for trading firms that have mastered the complexities of low-latency execution using approaches such as co-location and proximity.  Those mechanisms, while still relevant, provide a less complete solution when trading across markets that are geographically dispersed.

New entrants into the market for connectivity and proximity services include organizations that are themselves market participants, such as sell-side firms offering sponsored access and DMA, and liquidity venues, which are now providing global order routing networks, in some cases channelling order flow to their competitors.

Those service providers join traditional players including telcos, hosting companies and value-added extranet vendors, who often bundle trading applications with connectivity.

The bottom line: For multi-market trading, optimization of long-haul and metro communications links, combined with smart use of co-location, is an imperative for achieving the lowest latency, and this requires an understanding of connectivity offerings at a deep, granular level.

This  industry briefing explains the drivers for fragmentation and multi-market trading, the evolving landscape of market access, and explores connectivity approaches to minimize latency.

Cloud Computing Use Cases Whitepaper

These days trading floors may have disappeared, but the prize still goes to the swift and nimble in the market. And as electronic trading has taken hold, firms with the fastest network and performance across all of the links in the trading chain will be at the head of the queue, able to react speedily to changing market conditions. Once measured in seconds, latency is now calculated in microseconds, and as markets continue to be volatile, speed of thought and execution remain paramount for many firms., Vijay Kedia Flextrade Systems – Read More

Zero latency is the optimal trading speed that all firms hope to be able to achieve at some point in their life. But until that can become a reality instead of a dream, there is a race to keep reducing latency from all the aspects of the trading process. This is from the server to the messaging to the sending and receiving data, and each piece must be optimized to reach its zero latency goals. For example there is a data center in Weehawken, NJ houses five major exchanges including: the New York Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and BATS Trading. This idea is a way to ensure there is almost zero latency built into the trade to those exchanges but not really the complete puzzle. Even though the data centers that host the exchange as a simple cross connect, is rarely the only exchange a firm is trading on at one time, so how do we close the cap? The solution is simple. All one needs is a carrier who can transport the data when latency and performance are important but not that critical at the moment. When the latency however reaches a level that is critical to your company’s success and for your strategic advantage, you made need to relook at your approach and consider a more agnostic approach. This allows you to work with each carrier and see which one is able to provide you their best solutions between locations. This however may not be the best solution if you have multiple desires and needs for this problem. In the race to Alpha, the combination of Proximity Hosting paired with Low Latency Transport is the Key to your companies success.

If you would like to read more on this topic please visit our CFN Services website.

Every Microsecond Counts Today brings modern technology and with it, an increasing number of Internet-based applications that require an end-to-end latencies, requiring the need latencies to be transmitted at a rate of milliseconds or even microseconds. Many applications though still demand that the latency remain stable, otherwise having little to none ‘jitter’.  These new applications range from the popular multimedia services to things like voice-over-IP, multi-player gaming and even video conferencing. Since these applications are growing at such a successful rate, customers are placing just as increasing demands on operators to help provide and manage the networks needed to meet these new stringent demands. Unfortunately many of the tools that are currently available for use are not able to create accurate measures of the latencies in the magnitudes that are being demanded, nor can they even detect or localize any loss of spikes. This leads to a loss at extremely small time scales like tens of a microsecond.

Here is an example, a trading network that connects a stock exchange to the number of data centers where automatic trading applications run. In order to stop any unfair opportunities, network operations personnel must be able to ensure that the latencies between the exchange and each of the data centers are within 100 microseconds of each other.

This problem can be solved, just like many others by using current routers that typically support two distinct accounting mechanisms: SNMP and NetFlow. Each router cannot do the work all on its own, it needs the other to help pick up what it cannot. SMNP can only provide cumulative counters, which can be very useful when estimating load, however it cannot provide the latency estimates.  On the other hand NetFlow can give samples and timestamps to help with all the receiving packets and also allows the company to get a calculating of the latency requirements from multiple routers.

Fiber‐optic communication is defined as the method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The definition of zero network latency is a network transporting their information at the speed of light. This being said, the further the light has to travel, the higher the latency. Fiber networks normally do not follow a direct line between any who two locations. Instead they follow geographic contours that relate to roads or railroad tracks to name a few.  It is important to understand the exact route that your circuit will follow so that you can eliminate any wasted distance.

In the environment, there are two main options for how you can extend the transmission of light through the fiber; optical amplifiers and regenerators.   Amplifiers and Regenerators are placed along the fiber optic route to help ensure that the signal is able to travel the full distance, while keeping its’ strength and information. There is only one main difference between the two and that is that an amplifier adds light to the existing wavelength to help increase the strength of the signal without having to add more latency, whereas a regenerator will add a substantial amount of latency to add to the strength of the wavelength. Both of these require both a lit and dark fiber solution. A dark fiber is a term that is used to describe fiber optic strands that are not being used or has no equipment being used on the ends of the fiber. Its contrast is called a ‘lit’ fiber, meaning that it is an active fiber optic cable. Unfortunately, due to so few telecom companies still offering dark fiber, the available dark fiber route may be much longer then an alternative lit circuit oath from another provider.

If you want to read more on this topic, take a look at our case study.

In 2007, Cinnober published a white paper which established some best practices for measuring latency in financial markets and publishing the results in a clear and understandable fashion. Since that paper was published, latency has become the most widely-used metric. We also disclosed benchmark figures with a level of transparency seen neither before nor since, showing that the context of the latency testing environment is of the utmost importance.
In this paper we continue to explore the measurement of latency and, more importantly, what can be done to minimize it. We detail our test configurations and show how these affect the trade-off between latency and throughput. In our latest published benchmarks on a full-blown TRADExpress Trading System, we achieved a door-to-door latency of 286 microseconds and a business logic latency of 138 microseconds. We also publish our roadmap to further reduce latency, the goal of which is to go below 80 microseconds door-to-door within a year and 25 microseconds within 18 months.