Global Trading Company - Based in Europe
Sharing real-time trade data between networked Excel users
The Problem Definition
For many years, a European based global trading company has been using proprietary Excel models to make trading decisions based on real-time market data.
Recently, this company decided it wanted to distribute the execution orders produced by their Excel models to more of the traders on their corporate network. They looked for a solution that would allow them to share the results of the real-time Excel analysis, rather than running the actual proprietary models on each of the trader's workstations.
The advantages of this approach are:
- Transmitting just the actual trade signals, rather than sharing a view of the Excel models is much faster and consumes far less network bandwidth.
- By centralizing the analysis on secure office servers and sharing just the results, the company is able to protect their proprietary information and at the same time, implement easier revision control and system maintenance.
- Locating the real-time analysis on a central server also frees system resources on the trader's workstations allowing their local Excel applications to run more smoothly.
The Solution
The company's search lead them to Cogent's web site where they downloaded the demo version of the Cascade DataHub. "The demo software was easy to install and allowed us to put together a prototype system up in just a few days," said the IT Manager in charge of the project.
Using the Cascade DataHub, the company was able to quickly set up a system that distributed real-time trade signals to the trader's worksheets, where they were used to direct trading operations.
Initially, the company ran the DataHub in demo mode for an hour at a time, during the busiest trading times, to fully test the speed and reliability of the system. "Running in demo mode we were able to prove the performance of the system using live market data. The results were very good and the support we got from Cogent was excellent," said the IT Manager. "Once we had everything set up, we just installed the licenses to unlock the demo. We're very pleased with the results and we'll be looking to use the DataHub to expand our network of traders in the future."
Cogent develops middleware products for the financial and process control markets. The Cascade DataHub has been used to share real-time data for trading and banking institutions around the world.
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