Thomson Reuters Adds OPRA Support to FPGA Feed, Begins Europe Rollout

Officials say the move is part of a planned expansion of the offering to cover US cash equities, options and futures markets, before expanding Elektron Direct to cover the same asset classes in Europe over the remainder of this year and 2016. In the final stage of its US rollout, Thomson Reuters will add support to the service for direct exchange feeds from CME Group in August.

Bill Ruvo, head of real-time feeds at Thomson Reuters, says the addition of OPRA data is in response to client demand─though clients have not yet expressed demand for support of individual option exchange feeds via Elektron Direct─and reflects a natural progression in the evolution of the low-latency data marketplace as clients demand not just ultra-low latency, but also a smaller, more manageable and more affordable infrastructure footprint.

"One of the benefits of our FPGA solution is the client-site footprint. We are able to reduce that significantly while also improving latency of the service incredibly," Ruvo says. The Elektron Direct service provides latency of less than 8 microseconds, while only requiring a single server (or two servers for a redundant setup) containing two FPGA cards to handle the OPRA feed, whereas the vendor's existing Thomson Reuters Datafeed Direct (TRDFD) service requires 12 servers (or 24 for redundancy) to process OPRA data. This includes enough processing headroom to handle OPRA's forecast traffic increases over the next year, whereas TRDFD users would need to scale by adding extra servers to accommodate each traffic increase, he adds.

Whereas Thomson Reuters runs client-site installations of TRDFD as a managed service, providing updates, changes and reference data, Elektron Direct requires the client to manage the FPGA cards, servers, connectivity and relationships with the exchanges itself. However, given the significant reduction in server footprint, "most customers are happy with that tradeoff," Ruvo says. "It's an issue of weighing the benefits of lower latency against the costs of infrastructure. This provides the benefits of lower latency with the cost savings of a lighter infrastructure."

In fact, Ruvo says the vendor believes Elektron Direct can address a bigger and broader client base than TRDFD because of its potential to reduce clients' server footprint, adding that the solution will appeal to "anyone looking for sub-10 microseconds of latency, such as large banks, hedge funds, proprietary traders─anyone who requires FPGA-level latency."

Having completed its US coverage, Thomson Reuters will now turn its attention to the European markets, where it has already rolled out support in Elektron Direct for cash equities feeds from the London Stock Exchange and derivatives feeds from Deutsche Börse's Eurex derivatives market. Ruvo says the vendor will continue to roll out support for more European venues, though he declines to share further details of the vendor's exact roadmap at this time.

"As in the US, our strategy is to add support for cash equities, then futures. Between now and the end of this year, we will focus on European cash equities," he says.