NETSCOUT Case Studies Need to Monitor Latency, Performance and Throughput at Micro-Second Level Drives Investment Firm’s Purchase of nGenius Solution

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	Need to Monitor Latency, Performance and Throughput at Micro-Second Level Drives Investment Firm’s Purchase of nGenius Solution NETSCOUT

Need to Monitor Latency, Performance and Throughput at Micro-Second Level Drives Investment Firm’s Purchase of nGenius Solution

NETSCOUT

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software
Applicable Industries	Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions	Business Operation
Use Cases	Predictive Maintenance Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services	Data Science Services System Integration
Challenge	The leading sector index options trading firm and one of the largest liquidity providers in Exchange Traded Funds was facing challenges with their network performance. The network regularly experienced traffic bursts which caused retransmissions and delayed transaction speeds. Their existing historical reporting tools offered only five- or fifteen-minute averaging, which did not provide the granularity needed to see when and where these spikes were occurring or to determine the cause of these threshold violations. In addition, troubleshooting was tedious and frustrating as the tool could only capture packets on demand, making it challenging to catch intermittent problems in action. The need for millisecond-level visibility into market data transactions drove the move to permanently instrument key locations to provide a unified, end-to-end approach to evaluating application performance and latency issues. Read More
About Customer	The customer is a leading sector index options trading firm and one of the largest liquidity providers in Exchange Traded Funds. With offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, the company is focused on trading, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, institutional sales, and research. It is among North America’s largest option market makers, is the leading sector index options trading firm, and is one of the largest liquidity providers in Exchange traded funds. With 1100 traders, the company places a strong emphasis on technology to stay competitive in the fast-changing, increasingly automated market trading industry where any disruption to the network can mean lost profits, dissatisfied customers, or even potential lawsuits. The company uses a state-of-the-art infrastructure that includes 1500+ servers; an Oracle® database environment; Citrix® based applications; a globally distributed WAN supporting messaging middleware and market data services; and a modern 10,000 square foot data center. Read More
Solution	To address these challenges, the network operations team began looking for a solution that could provide subsecond level alerts when peak thresholds were reached on critical applications and links, and to also continuously capture and store packets for retrospective problem reconstruction. After an extensive search, the company purchased the nGenius® solution to assure that its traders got the response time they needed to succeed. The nGenius solution not only provided the necessary one-minute granularity with millisecond peak reporting intervals, but also microburst alarming on utilization of both physical and virtual circuits. For its initial deployment, the operation group chose to instrument its dedicated WAN with several InfiniStream® appliances placed strategically in their data center and most active business locations. The purchased InfiniStream appliances were configured with 8TB of hot swappable, redundant power and drive options that enable 24x7 continuous packet capture and back-in-time analysis. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software

Applicable Industries

Finance & Insurance

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Predictive Maintenance

Real-Time Location System (RTLS)

Services

Data Science Services

System Integration

Challenge

The leading sector index options trading firm and one of the largest liquidity providers in Exchange Traded Funds was facing challenges with their network performance. The network regularly experienced traffic bursts which caused retransmissions and delayed transaction speeds. Their existing historical reporting tools offered only five- or fifteen-minute averaging, which did not provide the granularity needed to see when and where these spikes were occurring or to determine the cause of these threshold violations. In addition, troubleshooting was tedious and frustrating as the tool could only capture packets on demand, making it challenging to catch intermittent problems in action. The need for millisecond-level visibility into market data transactions drove the move to permanently instrument key locations to provide a unified, end-to-end approach to evaluating application performance and latency issues.

About Customer

The customer is a leading sector index options trading firm and one of the largest liquidity providers in Exchange Traded Funds. With offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, the company is focused on trading, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, institutional sales, and research. It is among North America’s largest option market makers, is the leading sector index options trading firm, and is one of the largest liquidity providers in Exchange traded funds. With 1100 traders, the company places a strong emphasis on technology to stay competitive in the fast-changing, increasingly automated market trading industry where any disruption to the network can mean lost profits, dissatisfied customers, or even potential lawsuits. The company uses a state-of-the-art infrastructure that includes 1500+ servers; an Oracle® database environment; Citrix® based applications; a globally distributed WAN supporting messaging middleware and market data services; and a modern 10,000 square foot data center.

Solution

To address these challenges, the network operations team began looking for a solution that could provide subsecond level alerts when peak thresholds were reached on critical applications and links, and to also continuously capture and store packets for retrospective problem reconstruction. After an extensive search, the company purchased the nGenius® solution to assure that its traders got the response time they needed to succeed. The nGenius solution not only provided the necessary one-minute granularity with millisecond peak reporting intervals, but also microburst alarming on utilization of both physical and virtual circuits. For its initial deployment, the operation group chose to instrument its dedicated WAN with several InfiniStream® appliances placed strategically in their data center and most active business locations. The purchased InfiniStream appliances were configured with 8TB of hot swappable, redundant power and drive options that enable 24x7 continuous packet capture and back-in-time analysis.

Impact #1	Faster resolution of intermittent delays with market trading applications
Impact #2	Identification of mis-configured clients causing packet loss and excessive WAN traffic
Impact #3	Validated changes in response time, latency and utilization caused by new application deployments

Impact #1

Faster resolution of intermittent delays with market trading applications

Impact #2

Identification of mis-configured clients causing packet loss and excessive WAN traffic

Impact #3

Validated changes in response time, latency and utilization caused by new application deployments

Benefit #1	A millisecond advantage in trading applications can be worth $100 million a year to a major brokerage firm

Benefit #1

A millisecond advantage in trading applications can be worth $100 million a year to a major brokerage firm

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Overview

Need to Monitor Latency, Performance and Throughput at Micro-Second Level Drives Investment Firm’s Purchase of nGenius Solution

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit