Cloud-Based Financial Market Data, a New Partnership

Bon Jovi famously sang in his 2010 hit, “The More Things Change”:

The more things change the more they stay the sameThe more things change the more they stay the same

Ah, is it just me or does anybody seeThe new, improved tomorrow isn't what it used to beYesterday keeps comin' 'round, it's just reality

The world of market data has gone through dramatic changes over the past century, but in many ways, things are still the same. In 1817, when the New York Stock and Exchange Board was formed, brokers would gather twice a day to trade a list of 30 stocks and bonds. From a podium, the shouted bids and offers of these various brokers were recorded individually by the president of the exchange. While this process is physically different today, any improvements have served only to further cement the chokehold on data consumers.

Though changes in technology have been continued and dramatic, such as the internet and high-speed data transmissions, one thing that hasn’t changed is the requirement for the market data producers—exchanges, data consolidators, and alternative data sources—and the market data consumers—banks, hedge funds, and asset managers—to be physically connected.   

Exchanges, trading venues, and data consolidators still typically provide leased lines or “feeds” for their streaming data. They sell data and the associated connectivity. So, most banks and other data consumers today connect physically to data providers through direct lines. Society believes that this way is the best way, and, for many years, it has been the only way.

These direct connections are beneficial because they’re fast and reliable. The downside is that they are expensive to install and maintain, which leads to double-digit cost increases year over year. To make it more challenging, data consumers need to design their infrastructure to match the data as it comes from data providers. Why should a small 10-employee hedge fund be required to have the same on-premises connection equipment and infrastructure entry costs as a large investment bank? Today, the system works this way. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Enter the Cloud

Cloud computing is significantly transforming the financial services industry. The cloud is and will continue to be an evolving space that’s becoming more accessible and attractive to market data providers and consumers. Data providers can provide their data on a larger scale over the cloud, from which consumers can directly access.

As a cloud provider like Oracle Cloud builds  a marketplace for data aggregators and data service providers to host their applications, data consumers then benefit from having a one-stop spot for shopping all of their data feed needs. Consumers no longer need their own leased line for each data provider. They can operate with minimal on-premises equipment to access the provider’s data in any public data center.  

Market data consumers gain the ability to improve market distribution, control their entitlement more effectively, optionally access more providers, and connect to various sources simultaneously as required. They don’t need to endure down time to figure out how to connect to them.  

Cloud computing enhances efficiency, agility, and security in financial services, enabling institutions to adapt to the changing market dynamics and deliver a better customer experience. Here, OCI and BCC Group fit into the picture. Thanks to OCI and innovation over the past 10–15 years, companies can far more easily place workloads in the cloud and deliver the low-latency data sets required. With the BCC Group’s ONE Platform hosted on OCI Marketplace, data is democratized and available for all companies to add a myriad of data feeds to their existing workflows, grids, and applications.

The New Frontier

Previously, cloud providers generally focused only on providing so-called real-time optimized feeds—essentially, Level 1 tick data, which only includes basic quotes and used for non-critical use cases. This decision happens for a few reasons, namely that other cloud providers often charge exorbitant fees for data movement and egress. OCI is completely differentiated with no-cost data movement between availability domains and over private dedicated customer connections. OCI’s data center network fabric is also constructed in a way that supports extremely high-bandwidth workloads and low-latency performance.  The result is a whole new world of possibilities for both data providers and data consumers to be creative with their solutions and with the previously untouched level 3 full tick data for cloud use cases.

Conclusion

Together, OCI and BCC Group are working to build the next generation of market data technology. Through the improved efficiency, simple cost structure, and remarkable networking capabilities of OCI and the distribution and entitlement provided by BCC Group, data consumers no longer need to be held captive by their providers and can focus on doing what they do best: delivering value to their customers.

Getting back to Bon Jovi, the “new, improved tomorrow” is finally here. With the help of the neutral ONE Platform from BCC Group and OCI, the next evolutionary step is happening in the market data space today.

Keep an eye out for the next article in this series.

See https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/ for full details.

More information about market data www.mdc.news

Steven Riley

Senior Cloud Architect

Steven Riley is a Senior Cloud Architect focusing on Financial Services Institutions (FSI) with previous background working specifically with Market Data.

Travis Liles

Master Principal Cloud Architect

Master Principal Cloud Architect focusing on Financial Services Institutions (FSI)

William Bierds

Business Analyst and Systems Engineer - BCC Group International

William is a Business Analyst and Systems Engineer at BCC Group. Before joining BCC Group, he graduated from New York University with a Computer Science degree.