Market Data Feed Handlers: Coupe or Cabriolet?
Report Summary
Market Data Feed Handlers: Coupe or Cabriolet?
Market data feed handlers, currently available as hardware or software solutions, will soon be available as hybrid solutions, offering the best of both worlds.
Boston, February 10, 2012 – A new report from Aite Group sizes the market for data feed handlers, weighs the pros and cons of hardware versus software solutions, and profiles seven market data feed handler vendors across both architectures. The report is based on information from vendors, as well as Aite Group interviews with customers of market data feed handlers, firms that opted to build their own solutions, and several global exchanges and implementation consultants, completed between October 2011 and January 2012.
Feed handlers normalize incoming market data for use in trading applications. As contributors to an overall ticker plant, they also build order books and provide filtering, enrichment, and tracking capabilities. While commercial-software feed-handler vendors outnumber hardware suppliers, the momentum is clearly on the hardware side. All of the newest feed-handler companies are based on hardware design. The main advantages to selecting hardware are speed, determinism, and datacenter footprint, whereas with software the advantages include speed-to-market, price, agility, and the ability to run on commodity hardware. While there are pros and cons to hardware and software solutions, Aite Group anticipates a convergence of the two in the near future.
“While hardware has momentum, software remains king in terms of installation footprint,” says Adam Honoré, research director with Aite Group and author of this report, “Neither group, however, will claim victory in this space. Hybrid solutions will emerge, providing an ideal option for firms looking for both speed and the ability to adequately plan for their market data growth.”
The report profiles market data feed handlers provided by: Exegy, IBM, Novasparks, NYSE Technologies, Redline Trading, SpryWare, and SR Labs.
This 34-page Impact Report contains 12 figures and seven tables. Clients of Aite Group’s Institutional Securities & Investments service can download the report.