Correlix Teams Up with Endace on Latency Measurement

Pinpointing latency in complex trading environments is not easy as transactions pass through convoluted, interconnected environments. Last week, Israeli startup Correlix announced the selection of the Endace to run its trade latency management solutions on top of Endace's Ninja Box appliances and Endace Data Acquisition and Generation (DAG) interface cards.

Correlix develops products (Latency Intelligence Solutions) that pinpoint and quantify sources of latency across parties— which could be exchanges, buy or sell-side firms. Firms use this latency analysis to shave milliseconds of time off obtaining and acting upon market data. "As complex transactions transverse different silos, we are capable of observing this traffic on top of Endace," explains Shaw Melamed, founder and CEO of Correlix in the firm's Wall Street headquarters. While Endace's DAG cards or Ninja Box appliances passively listen to the network traffic, Correlix's solution "connects to the underlying infrastructure through the Endace DAG cards or Ninja Box and consumes the raw data," says Melamed.

"Our solution specialists have the ability to observe the environment which is convoluted," says Melamed. As transaction flows traverse across different silos— it can go through five to seven silos through one organization or through an exchange, explains Melamed. "Our solution is correlating all those data sets together and assembling all the pieces of the transaction into a visual flow."

For example, if the transaction starts in an execution management system (EMS) server, then it goes to a markets interface and then to the market in the form of a report, and then back to the client, "You may have five-or-six tiers along the way, "illustrates Melamed. "We're capable of piecing together all the messages and finding how much time you're spending on each step along the way at a micro-level, he says. "It allows the customer to isolate the latency- showing them which component is from my OMS, FIX engine or market interface," says Melamed.

Meanwhile, in recent months, there's been a small flood of trade-latency management products hitting the market, some of which rely on Endace's cards or appliances for time stamping data packets. In June, Trading Metrics released Trading Latency Metrics, which also runs on top of Endace Ninja Box for high-speed data capture and time stamping. Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio

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