Equinix data centres expand European remit
Global data centre provider Equinix has revealed details of a series of moves designed to give European participants better access to data centre services.
Among the moves, the firm’s Zurich International Business Exchange data centre is to house SIX Swiss Exchange’s new co-location services for its equities trading platform X-stream INET. When launched in the first half of 2012, the new platform from SIX is intended to provide significantly enhanced trading capacity and reduced latency for users.
“The availability of the X-stream INET platform inside our Zurich data centre will provide an attractive offering for market participants looking to increase their trading capacity while lowering latency,” said Marco Dottarelli, managing director, Equinix Switzerland.
Meanwhile, firms based in Equinix Frankfurt and the surrounding area can take advantage of a new SuperFeed Europe proximity site established by NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology arm of exchange group NYSE Euronext. The new Frankfurt offering is designed to offer low-latency co-location services. It offers access to the Ultra+ market data products from Deutsche Börse’s Xetra and Eurex platforms, as well as the Irish, Bulgarian, Vienna, Prague, Bucharest, Budapest and Ljubljana Stock Exchanges, CEF core and SIX Swiss Exchange MDI. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is expected to be added before the end of 2011.
All available markets on the SuperFeed Europe inventory including London-based markets can also be made available to clients in the Frankfurt site.
Beyond Europe, Equinix is also planning to construct a third International Business Exchange data centre in the Seattle metropolitan area in the USA. The new centre is intended to provide a hub for the northwestern US and a distribution point for IP traffic to Asia, and is scheduled to open in Q1 2013.
Fidessa adds ITG Logic to buy-side workstation
Financial technology company Fidessa has added trading technology provider and agency broker ITG’s pre-trade analysis tool, ITG Logic, to its buy-side workstation.
The Fidessa buy-side workstation is an out of the box trading solution designed to give greater control of the execution process. It provides access to cross-asset DMA tools, algos and program trading.
With the addition of ITG’s pre-trade analysis tool, the buy-side workstation now provides traders and portfolio managers with the means to measure expected transaction and opportunity cost using factors such as execution strategies, time horizon, volatility, spread, volume and order size.
The ability to analyse the effects of these factors is intended to give users a better understanding of the trade-off between market impact and opportunity cost, as well as the trade-offs between different algos.
The Fidessa buy-side workstation is supplied with market data and is integrated with the Fidessa network, which provides low-latency connectivity between 2,650 buy-side and 650 broker firms across 160 markets.
IPC and Patsystems establish high-speed US connections
Trading technology and connectivity providers IPC Systems and Patsystems have both separately unveiled low-latency trading routes in the US.
IPC Systems has set up a new express trading route linking New York, Stamford and Boston. Aimed at hedge funds and small trading firms located in the New York and New England area, the route provides a direct gateway to trading facilities located across the northeast seaboard.
“IPC sees significant growth opportunities in the hedge fund market and our new route offers these firms a service to meet the demands of a market where milliseconds matter,” said Lou Marchese, vice president, network operations Americas, IPC Systems.
The latest addition follows recent express route launches between New York and Chicago as well as network expansions across the US and Canada earlier this year.
Meanwhile, rival company Patsystems has established an ultra-low latency connection between Chicago and New York, providing the firm’s New York-based customers with high-speed access to the company’s XConnect hub in Chicago.
The Patsystems XConnect hub in Chicago offers low-latency connectivity to 15 futures markets. Patsystems XConnect is a fully-managed ASP solution, designed to be strongly scalable, offering the full benefits of the Patsystems trading solution without the need for clients to manage or invest in hardware and related support resources.
FIX Solutions makes Nick Nickitas COO
FIX Solutions has appointed Nick Nickitas to the role of chief operating officer. As COO, Nickitas will be responsible for helping FIX Solutions expand its presence throughout both the German-speaking and Benelux regions. He will be responsible for strategic and operational leadership of FIX Solution’s sales, marketing, business development, human resources and financial planning.
Nickitas joins FIX Solutions after five years at FIX Flyer, where he served as director of business development. In that role, he led FIX Flyer’s growth from four to 160 customers.
FIX Solutions is the sole provider of FIX Flyer products, combined with IT operations and data services. FIX Solutions’ abilities also include software licencing, managed services, data centres in different ASP solutions and consulting.
Charles River offers new data service
Software provider Charles River Development has announced the availability of the Charles River Data Service, a new offering that is designed to deliver validated security reference, issuer, benchmark/index and pricing data aggregated from varies providers directly into the Charles River investment management system (IMS).
Live with its first few clients, the Charles River Data Service is intended to lower the overall cost of managing data, while ensuring quality is maintained. It offers reference, issuer and end of day pricing/evaluation data for batch and new security setups across equity and fixed income instruments. It delivers real-time quotes for equities, options and futures, provides data validation, auditing and support for new security setup and includes continuous monitoring and management of data feeds and disaster recovery.
The Charles River Data Service is offered as a core component of the company’s Software as a Service solution.
“The Charles River Data Service alleviates the data management burden by aggregating data, validating it and delivering it ‘hand-in-glove’ into the Charles River IMS through direct feeds from data sources,” said Brad Haigis, director, data services, Charles River Development.