Californian software firm Azul Systems today announced that it is to form a commercial partnership with Japanese financial technology provider Simplex Consulting.
Azul Systems has recently gained traction in among Western markets with its Zing Java Virtual Machine (JVM) runtime environment, and is now taking its product into the Japanese market via this alliance.
JVM Integration
In this particular partnership, Simplex Consulting will include the Zing JVM in its portfolio of Java-based trading environments such as its FX Trading Platform which is offered under the moniker Simplex FX, Simplex PRISM which is the firm’s front office and middle office solution for derivatives, and Simplex BLAST, which provides front and middle office solutions for equities and listed derivatives.
Refinements and Revisions
Technologically, Azul Systems has been engaged in ironing out any latency-related bugbears which could arise when implementing the JVM within a trading environment. Some of this development has been completed via partnerships, as is the case with last month’s alliance with application-intelligent high-speed network provider Solarflare in order to create an anti-jitter methodology and reduce end-to-end application latency in the runtime environment.
A further partnership aimed at enhancing the performance of Zing was cemented in May, when Azul Systems partnered with Rapid Addition in order to meet client demand for increased transaction speeds and ensure response times are consistent, a dynamic which is becoming omnipresent across the connectivity spectrum at the moment.
Japan Azul The Advantages
In April this year, British FX Multilateral Trading Facility LMAX Exchange selected the Zing JVM as a method of optimizing execution performance, further demonstrating that not only is Azul Systems engaging in partnerships with Western software firms, but also targeted Western institutional clients, until now.
Japanese traders execute very high volume and require fast connectivity, but have been somewhat excluded from the current anti-latency race that appears to be taking place this year in North America and Europe.
Azul Systems sees this entry into Japan as an opportunity to provide firms with a semi-customizable means of bringing latency down, without having to invest huge resources and time into building a trading system from scratch.
Through the Azul Systems collaboration, Simplex can now distribute a trading platform which eliminates the business risks associated with Java application pauses, latency spikes and traditional memory ceilings, while guaranteeing improved application response times and throughput, eliminating latency outliers, and reducing the risk of revenue loss.
Scott Sellers
CEO, Azul Systems
Hidekazu Sugiura, Partner at Simplex Consulting issued a statement on the partnership: “Before we signed an agreement with Azul Systems, we conducted a three (3) month Java benchmarking exercise to evaluate the effectiveness of Zing with our equities trading system”
“Our findings concluded that Zing immediately reduces latency jitters with minimal tuning effort. Latency and Java application performance are business-critical issues for many of our customers, hence the strong interest in promoting Zing. It is by far the best JVM on the market for any industry sector capitalizing and wanting to Leverage low latency with application efficiency” explained Mr. Sugiura.
Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul Systems, further stated: “In Japan, Simplex is a highly respected software vendor for the financial community. Simplex customers demand high quality and flawless execution. By combining Zing with Simplex’s proven trading platforms and building blocks, we can jointly deliver best-in-breed solutions to the financial sector.”
