LMAX Exchange and Azul partner to cut latency on FX platform
The LMAX Exchange, the first regulated multilateral trading facility (MTF) for foreign exchange (FX) trading in Europe under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), is installing Azul Systems’ Zing Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to enhance its low latency performance and support large in-memory datasets for corporate clients and other end users. The two firms will also cooperate on a joint engineering project to ensure continuous performance optimisation for the low latency FX execution venue.
LMAX Exchange intends to use the Zing JVM and its strategic partnership with Azul as a technological foundation to cope with growth and deliver reliable performance, high throughput and low latency execution.
Azul’s Zing is a 100% Java-compatible high performance JVM, which has been shown to deliver low latency and support large in-memory datasets without performance penalty, and will go live this quarter at LMAX Exchange. In essence, it eliminates operational interruptions, response time outliers and the scalability limits of Java-based trading and other financial services applications, says the vendor. LMAX Exchange is installing Zing without having to make any changes to its trading software architecture, approach to software development or its advanced continuous delivery process, which was another reason for the specification.
The two companies are planning to publish a series of white papers throughout the year summarising the results of their on-going technical collaboration, including any business and performance benefits achieved.
Commenting on the link-up, Edward McDaid, chief information officer (CIO) at LMAX Exchange, said: “LMAX Exchange is already one of the fastest execution venues for FX and our deep technological collaboration with Azul will help to ensure we continue to deliver even faster and more consistent execution for our clients in the future.”
Scott Sellers, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Azul Systems, was equally bullish: “We’ve seen time and time again that if you are using a conventional JVM, you will not be able to deliver consistent ultra-low latency with high scalability,” he claimed. “We provide a fast, reliable and proven solution which ensures execution venues, risk analysis engines, messaging infrastructure and a myriad of other low-latency applications benefit from consistency and reliability of execution and improved service availability – even under demanding and unpredictable loads. Our Zing JVM enables financial institutions like LMAX Exchange to seamlessly grow transaction volumes and meet ever stricter service level agreements (SLAs).”