Deutsche Börse to offer additional time service for co-location customers

Deutsche Börse announced today the launch of a new service as part of the on-going strive to improve the service offering for latency-sensitive customers of its derivatives market Eurex Exchange and its cash market Xetra. As of 2 April, a new Time Service will be launched enhancing the current ExServes product portfolio, which comprises all services and solutions for access to the trading systems of Deutsche Börse Group. The new tool will allow for better synchronization of clocks of customers’ installations in Deutsche Börse’s co-location facility with the matching engines of Eurex and Xetra.

“The Time Service solution is a further, innovative tool of Deutsche Börse’s leading co-location solutions and of great value for our customers”, said Wolfgang Eholzer, Head of Trading System Design of Eurex. “The exact and synchronized time will contribute to increased transparency and enables new analysis options for co-location customers.”

Technically, the service will deploy the GPS (Global Positioning System) delivered time over a dedicated network which supports the Precision Time Protocol (PTP V2) and the Network Time Protocol (NTP). The hardware based PTP solution provides time distribution with accuracy in the sub microsecond range. The installation is built utilizing the technology of two leading time synchronization providers, Meinberg Funkuhren and Hirschmann (a Belden brand).

This launch is part of a series of IT improvements. E.g., in December 2011, Deutsche Börse rolled out its industry leading 10 Gbit/s network for co-location customers. As of today, more than 250 connections have already been activated.