NASDAQ Powers Up Its Colo Offerings

High-speed trading customers are packing more equipment into their cabinets, and thhe operator of the NASDAQ stock exchange is responding with a new high-density enclosure for companies that colocate their servers in the NASDAQ data center.

The NASDAQ OMX Group today introduced the Super Cab, a cabinet that vents the hot exhaust air from servers into a custom cabinet chimney, allowing it to cool customer workloads requiring up to 17 kilowatts of power within the NASDAQ OMX Data Centert. The solution also reduces cabinet-to-cabinet connectivity latency and maintains reliability with fully redundant power capacity.

The NASDAQ is among the exchanges offering colocation services to trading customers who want to house their servers as close as possible to exchange's "matching engines" - the servers that match buy and sell orders and provide updated pricing information. The need to execute a trade a microsecond ahead of rivals has created an arms race in ultra-low latency colocation, and is reshaping the playing field in the trading industry.

The NASDAQ OMX Data Center is located in New Jersey, and is one of the largest U.S. trading hubs in the world, hosting both equities and options markets and providing access to major industry market data feeds and multiple telecommunications providers.

NASDAQ OMX colocation services are available to all market participants and provides customers the opportunity to place their own trading systems within the NASDAQ OMX Data Center with equal distance to the matching engine. Access Services also offers various levels of power, access and bandwidth within the NASDAQ OMX Data Center to give customers options according to their individual needs.

NASDAQ OMX also announced the coming availability of a new high-speed network offering, 40G Client Connectivity, which will allow customers to access all of the exchange group's U.S. markets through a single ultra low latency connection. Network latency on 40 GB is expected to be reduced by an average of 7 microseconds roundtrip compared to the current 10 GB connectivity option available to colocation clients. In addition, customers can use 40G Client Connectivity to access all data feeds offered in the NASDAQ OMX Data Center, including NASDAQ OMX market data and many other U.S. exchange feeds and consolidated feeds.

"NASDAQ OMX is pleased to be the first exchange to offer these innovative co-location solutions," said Stacie Swanstrom, Vice President of Transaction Services at NASDAQ OMX. "Super Cab and 40G Client Connectivity add to the most advanced offerings available at the NASDAQ OMX Data Center, providing the highest tiers in a suite of services for power, access and bandwidth."