CHX Adds Multicasting To Infrastructure To Streamline Traffic Via Iona's Orbixtalk

CHICAGO--The Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX) is implementing IP multicasting via Dublin-based Iona Technologies' Orbixtalk middleware on its trading floor, with about 140 CHX specialists to benefit from the upgrade.

Currently in production for distributing market data to specialists' workstations, the system will be fully rolled out to traders and brokers by the end of next week, says John Kerin, the CHX's vice president in charge of application development.

Orbixtalk will be tightly integrated with Orbix, the incumbent Object Request Broker (ORB) object-oriented middleware that the exchange has been using since 1997; Orbixtalk will provide multicasting for CHX traders working in a Microsoft Windows NT environment. Employing what Kerin refers to as a distribution platform akin to "a pub/sub metaphor", Orbixtalk will streamline multiple, identical messages into a single multicast, aiding smoother transaction flows.

In addition, Orbixtalk will improve links between the front-end Specialist Station workstation applications and back-end proprietary, legacy VAX/VMS minicomputers from the Digital division of Compaq Computers. However, while still retaining the back-end, the CHX has been gradually moving away from running applications against the VAXes for some time now (TTW, March 30, 1998), with a renewed emphasis on the middle-tier. Long-term, the CHX hopes to supplant the VAX/VMS systems entirely. Kerin adds that the exchange's Versant Object Technology object databases are to be upgraded with new hardware--replacing the previous servers with new Compaq Proliant 5500R models, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) CPUs in a four-way configuration, with each CPU set at 450MHz and equipped with Pentium II Xeon 450 chips. The new servers are expected to quadruple throughput; two are currently in production.

The newly augmented system will facilitate improved messaging transparency via the CHX's order-routing system, the Midwest Automated Execution (MAX) platform. For example, if a client is repeatedly failing to receive a message, Orbixtalk will forego that particular node and continue to route messages around the problem to other clients, thus avoiding backups in the server. This is particularly important with high-volume market data feeds that are prone to getting bogged down.

Kerin says the move to integrate Orbixtalk was a foregone conclusion because the CHX has long embraced Corba for its trading systems (TTW, November 17, 1997), utilizing Iona's Orbix. Exchange officials have touted the scalability, flexibility and efficiency of the product as major factors in their decision to push forward with the upgrade, with dissemination of information to the client-side being the main priority in adopting Orbixtalk.

Kerin says a 10-person team was set up to usher in Orbixtalk, split between two groups--infrastructure and client-side development.