05:29 PM
RBC Capital Markets Picks Wombat Messaging Software
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
RBC Capital Markets' proprietary trading desk has signed up for Wombat Financial Software's market data platform to achieve low-latency market data distribution and integration. RBC will deploy Wombat's MAMA platform above TIBCO/Rendezvous (RV) messaging software, according to the release.While Rendezvous provides the core application-to-application messaging, the Wombat Platform overlays a suite of market-data specific programming interfaces, quality of service controls, and entitlement control capabilities and off-the-shelf feed handlers.
The proprietary trading desk made the decision to adopt Wombat for the performance benefits of its market data infrastructure, the breadth of its product line and the company's reputation for customers service and support, said the release.
Wombat's feed handlers provide sub-millisecond connectivity to more than 80 direct exchange and aggregated vendor feeds. According to Wombat, the firm's "middleware agnostic" programming interfaces will allow RBC to upgrade its middleware over time as technologies evolve without having to recode applications.
MAMA, which stands for Middleware Agnostic Messaging, is an API abstraction layer that publishes and subscribes to messages over a range of underlying middlewares, according to Ken Barnes, VP, business and planning. "When you write your application to MAMA you can then change the middleware you use underneath it as you see fit with minimal changes to your application code," explained Barnes. The three main middleware products that Wombat works with are TIBCO's RV, LBM (Latency Busters Messaging) from 29 West and its own Wombat middleware, said Barnes. Though RBC currently has a licensing deal with TIBCO, if in the future RBC determines that LBM meets its needs, the applications written to MAMA need not change, he said. Even if the customer never moves to LBM, the mere fact that they can means when it's time to renegotiate with TIBCO they can get a better deal because TIBCO knows the customer is not locked in," said Barnes.
"With market data, you have a capacity problem that generally doubles in magnitude every year. We believe a platform that can decouple you from the limitations of any single messaging transport can be a very effective risk management tool and can better equip capital markets participants to cope with these volatile markets," stated Daniel Moore, COO of Wombat, in the release. Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio