Imported from previous forum
Hello,
Does anybody have any information regarding the level of true 24x7 continuous FIX connection support among brokers and exchanges globally?
True 24x7 means FIX connection will be continously running without any weekly downtime (i.e. logout) for system maintenance etc.
We know that at least some FIX counterparties (especially buy-sides) demand true 24x7 as they do not want to terminate the FIX connection at all.
Besides FIX sequence number issue (which can be reset with ResetSeqNumFlag in mid-session Logon message or sequence reset-reset), we consider the more important issue is how to secure the system maintenance window.
We would very much appreciate any information regarding this topic.
Sincerely
Tadashi Kobayashi
Hello,
Does anybody have any information regarding the level of true 24x7
continuous FIX connection support among brokers and exchanges globally?True 24x7 means FIX connection will be continously running without any
weekly downtime (i.e. logout) for system maintenance etc.We know that at least some FIX counterparties (especially buy-
sides) demand true 24x7 as they do not want to terminate the FIX
connection at all.Besides FIX sequence number issue (which can be reset with
ResetSeqNumFlag in mid-session Logon message or sequence reset-reset),
we consider the more important issue is how to secure the system
maintenance window.We would very much appreciate any information regarding this topic.
Sincerely
Tadashi Kobayashi
In order to keep the option of system upgrades and support hardware maintenance/exchange/failure without any downtime in your system you would need to have a hot stand-by for every vital part. Also all persistent information has to be possible to move in order to allow changes in structure. Also keep in mind that keeping a 24/7 FIX connection does not necessarily mean a 24/7 system. Consider options such as having permanent FIX connections to a gateway and using market closing/trade halting/technical stop for maintenance that require such actions (such as moving an order book from one server to another).
FIX connections can/should be seen as permanent connections, just sometimes in an online or offline state. Where messages can be sent to an offline session that once is online state is sent. My assumption is that your buy-side does not want to terminate their connection because they want to keep continually up to date without having to request snapshots etc. And this would assure this, besides, network interruptions will most likely happen at some point, between the two parties and it’s probably a good thing to plan for this. Also here physical limitations come to action. Assume you resume a fixconnection from an offline to an online state and you buffer messages that is to be sent. How much can you buffer?
Assuming the 24x7 requirement is a hard requirement, you need a high-availability solution. However its worthwhile to note that there are two problems you are trying to solve. The solutions are described as follows:
Redundant FIX Connectivity - The FIX gateway will eventually need to be restarted. Therefore it is be necessary to run redundant FIX connections in two separate FIX gateways.
IP masking - The machine running the two FIX gateways will need to be shutdown. Therefore the FIX gateways must run as hot-hot (or hot-standby) on separate machines. Additionally, those two machines must be addressable by the same IP from the client view (note, this assumes the client is connecting over TCP/IP).
For the first solution, most robust FIX engine solutions provide a ‘high-availability’ or ‘redundant’ solution that allows two FIX connections on disparate FIX gateways to share session information.
For the second solution, there are a variety of high availability network solutions that allow for IP masking.
Caveat: It is probably necessary to note that my company provides these solutions so I am likely to have a natural bias.
Hello,
Does anybody have any information regarding the level of true 24x7
continuous FIX connection support among brokers and exchanges globally?True 24x7 means FIX connection will be continously running without any
weekly downtime (i.e. logout) for system maintenance etc.We know that at least some FIX counterparties (especially buy-
sides) demand true 24x7 as they do not want to terminate the FIX
connection at all.Besides FIX sequence number issue (which can be reset with
ResetSeqNumFlag in mid-session Logon message or sequence reset-reset),
we consider the more important issue is how to secure the system
maintenance window.We would very much appreciate any information regarding this topic.
Sincerely
Tadashi Kobayashi