Thomson Reuters Launches Next Gen Network

In an effort to boost trading and data speeds, Thomson Reuters has launched its new Elektron next generation aggregated data network.

“We have put the direct feed technology at the source where the data originates and so we collect right at the source from exchanges or others who want to publish on the network,” explains Terry Roche, Global Head of Information Management Solutions at Thomson Reuters. “That will be connected to a data highway with a number of regional data centers.”

The open, neutral network relies on proximity and co-location hosting centers in New York, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Singapore with additional centers in Hong Kong, India and Brazil opening later this year.

He adds that overall the aggregated feed speeds will be close to that of direct feed technology today with benchmark testing put it at up to 20 times faster than traditional aggregated data networks.

“Broker dealers and clients will in time be able to create whatever data they would like to create and then in a fully-controlled manner distribute that data to whomever they’d like to consume it and also receive information back, so it will be bi-directional,” says Roche.

Some of the information that could potentially be transported between users via Elektron includes analytics, algorithms, risk models or post-trade facilities and reference data resources.

“Given the amount of trading executed electronically, to be able to dynamically integrate information into an application in as open and standard fast way as possible is of extreme interest and benefit potentially to users,” says Roche.

He notes that the ability to consume new, complex information and to create peer-to-peer connections on the same infrastructure is something customers have expressed serious interest in.