A Question on the Fault Tolerance capabilities of a FIX Engine

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Imported from previous forum

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Hello,

We are in the process of evaluating FIX Engines for investing in one and my question is similar to the one posted before on the Fault Tolerance Mechanism of a FIX Engine.

Is it better to invest in a FIX Engine that provides the Fault Tolerance Mechanism for failover to a secondary server in case the primary server goes down? or Is it better to implement the fault tolerance mechanism on your own.
What are the issues we would need to consider while implementing our own solution?

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thank You!
Desiree Bollier.

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Desiree Bollier wrote:
> Is it better to invest in a FIX Engine that
> provides the Fault Tolerance Mechanism for
> failover to a secondary server in case the
> primary server goes down? or Is it better to
> implement the fault tolerance mechanism on
> your own.
> What are the issues we would need to consider
> while implementing our own solution?

The answer is going to depend an awful lot on your requirements. What kind of firm you are, how many transactions a day you handle, what the cost of problems is. Also, what the capabilities of your existing systems are.

Ryan gave some very good advice. As well, consider what your existing capabilities are. There’s no point in adding a deluxe fault tolerant FIX interface to a trading system hosted on a single machine at a single location. Equally, if your trading system is dual-sited with all the bells and whistles, you’re going to want to be sure that the FIX interface doesn’t destroy your fault tolerance.

The fault tolerance that you want buy in a FIX solution will depend on what your trading system is capable of, and what your counterparties are capable of. For example - and say your firm sends orders - what happens if you have a systems failure? What if your counterparty does? Are orders lost? Are old orders resent? How are trades resulting from lost orders re-integrated? Now just extend that analysis to consider the case of a [FIX] communications failure. Ironically, if your trading system is very advanced, you may need less from your FIX engine.

Cheers, Dave