Investment bank reduces latency with FPGA-based accelerator

Velocimetrics, which supplies flow tracking and real-time, in-stream performance analytics, is using acceleration technology from Napatech to reduce the tick-to-trade latency of a global Tier 1 investment bank in Europe.

After detailed analysis of the bank’s complex trading platform, Velocimetrics’ analytics identified bottlenecks and latencies which, once corrected, resulted in a reduction in tick-to-trade latency from 100μs (microseconds) to 10μs.

The project used the Napatech SmartNIC FPGA-based solution as a key component in the Velocimetrics suite of products.

Paul Spencer, COO of Velocimetrics, commented: “In trading, every bit of latency makes a huge difference to the bottom line, and slashing it by a factor of 10 is enormously significant and, of course, profitable for the client. Napatech and Velocimetrics have a long and successful partnership, and the joint solution uses an innovative combination of technology; the success experienced by the client with this deployment provides further evidence of the financial value provided.”

Jarrod Siket, CMO of Napatech, said: “To meet today’s business requirements and address increasing competition and changes in the equities trading marketplace, financial services companies need full, independent visibility of their network and systems, as well as internal and external network applications, to make the right business decisions. This requires advanced monitoring and analytics that can deliver results in near-real time to keep pace with the speed of equities trading.”