The scope of this report is low-latency messaging middleware for the tick-to-trade, auto-hedging, trading algorithms, DMA, matching engine and execution venue use cases. As financial markets embrace electronic trading, speed becomes a significant consideration for trading.
Latency is a core consideration for proprietary traders and market makers across asset classes, particularly among trading desks concerned with best execution, high-frequency trading (HFT) and the exploration of each market opportunity.
Nanosecond trading is increasingly attainable as vendor solutions continuously improve, adapting new technologies. We undertake a comparative analysis of seven vendors with mature product offerings. Five offer IPC and one achieves latency in the nanosecond (ns) range under laboratory conditions. Latencies in the one to 10 microseconds (µs) range are achieved using InfiniBand with remote direct memory access (RDMA) and by providing some level of reliable messaging. The 10 µs to 30 µs latency range is achieved with a 10-gigabit Ethernet using TCP with the middleware providing the reliability.
The report gives a list of key considerations when choosing messaging middleware. These considerations relate to business, performance, technical and financial requirements. This extensive requirements gathering exercise is conducted to understand the current and future demands of the system and to allow for effective long term planning.
