NASDAQ OMX Selects Cisco Technology for High Performance Options Trading Networks

NASDAQ OMX PHLX has selected Cisco’s Data Center Business Advantage portfolio as the infrastructure for its options trading exchange and its evolving data center architecture.

The exchange said its decision stems from the fact that across the global financial markets industry, new trading strategies, fragmented liquidity venues, and requirements for highest trading execution are driving the need for optimal reliability, predictability and ultra-low-latency connected data centers.

As such, NASDAQ OMX said that to meet these needs, NASDAQ OMX PHLX selected Cisco’s Data Center Business Advantage portfolio as the infrastructure for its options trading exchange and its evolving data center architecture.

NASDAQ OMX PHLX deployed the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches and the Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender (FEX), which provides scalability and a simplified, single point of management capability.

Additionally, users have seen significant performance improvement, including reduced latency and jitter, and a greater ability to scale capacity while maintaining high-performance. This new Cisco deployment adds to previously deployed financial markets solutions for switching, routing, security and collaboration within other NASDAQ OMX environments. NASDAQ OMX’s options exchange trades more than 2,600 equity options, sector index options and U.S dollar-settled options on major currencies, and in combination with NASDAQ Options Market represents approximately 27 percent of total US equity options trading.

For the Options Trading Exchange, the NASDAQ OMX IT team deployed 12 Nexus 5000 Series Switches and 24 Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders, which are future-proofed to deploy a unified fabric with fibre-channel-over-Ethernet. With Cisco Unified Fabric capabilities, NASDAQ OMX said it can continue to add data center capacity at a rapid rate without having to add IT staff, and existing staff can focus more on supporting key business objectives.

“NASDAQ OMX’s close collaboration with Cisco is a journey, not an event," said Lou Modano, head of global infrastructure for NASDAQ OMX. “Cisco’s networking and data center architectural expertise, and the depth and breadth of its solution set, provide NASDAQ OMX with a leading-edge foundation for future growth. With Cisco at our side, we never have to go back and re-architect, but can continually use our IT investments to build on our foundation and provide the highest performing services and functionality to our customers. This helps us to provide the best possible trading experience for our customers.” Melanie Rodier has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for over 10 years, covering business and finance, general news, and film trade news. Prior to joining Wall Street & Technology in April 2007, Melanie lived in Paris, where she worked for the International Herald ... View Full Bio