Overview

Feed Handler Software for Direct Data Feeds

Many companies choose to receive market data directly from financial market sources such as NASDAQ, SIAC (NYSE, AMEX, etc.), ECNs, and other markets. There are many reasons for doing so, including latency minimization, cost reduction, reliability/redundancy, etc. In taking direct data feeds, however, companies are faced with a task of integrating such feeds into their own environment, whether that environment is a standard market data distribution system such as TIBCO or Reuters, or some internally developed market data system.

The cost of maintaining custom software interfaces to these feeds (i.e. "feed handler" software) can be substantial, yet the strategic advantage of having the direct feeds is always downstream of the feed handler software. The feed handler software itself is of little strategic importance and is a good candidate for consideration of third-party solutions.

Wombat provides an off-the-shelf range of feed handler software products that turns the unproductive, possibly expensive task of custom feed handler software development (and maintenance) into a simple, affordable third-party product solution. Whereas, in the past, companies had no choice but to build their own feed handler interfaces for direct market data feeds, now there is a "Build versus Buy" choice:

• Build your own direct feed handler software (and/or continue to maintain it), or
• Buy full-featured, supported feed handler software from an experienced and independent third-party software vendor.

The build versus buy question is almost entirely a financial one because, as mentioned, the strategic advantage of direct feeds is downstream of the feed handlers. However, there is also the issue of having to assign valuable technical resources to the non-strategic development and maintenance of market data feed handler software. Those technical resources might be more productive working on the downstream components/applications in the market data system.

Lead Time, Maintenance Costs and Manageability

Project lead time and ongoing maintenance costs are important components of the true cost of the build versus buy decision.

There are considerable maturing periods, often 6-18 months, with feed handler technology and market data technology in general. Time to market is a key factor for the business groups trading off the data. Wombat provides off the shelf and production proven solutions which help firms implement solutions that get them into production and generating revenue fast. Much of this technology has been refined through our work with leading groups in the sector. Very often it provides a much more complete set of features than would be available with home grown solutions.

In some cases, more especially where a solution is being implemented for a small number of feeds for a single business group, it's possible to implement a low cost internally developed solution. However, the ongoing cost and management overhead of such solutions tends to escalate dramatically as the number of feeds and end users increase. Wombat solutions provide a consistent 'look and feel' including management and monitoring interfaces across feed handlers for all direct feeds and vendor feeds globally. Moreover, the feed handlers themselves can be used to push data onto all leading market data platforms or ported to support proprietary systems.

The true cost advantage achieved with Wombat technology increases significantly with the scope of the installation.

Versatility

Wombat feed handlers are versatile enough to meet all or almost all of our customers requirements - and for those requirements that we may not quite meet; we are willing to consider product enhancements.

Currently Wombat feed handlers provide a superset of the functionality required by over 20 top business groups in the sector.