Time Accurate to Nanoseconds Enables High Speed Precision in Bank Trading

Chronos is on the panel of the 2nd Annual Ultra Low Latency: Trading Opportunities and Developments in FX and Other Asset Classes 23 March 2011, London. more»

Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, UK, 12 November 2010, Chronos Technology, the UK's leader in time and timing for fixed and mobile telecoms, has demonstrated a time system accurate to the low nanoseconds for high speed, high volume trading in one of the UK’s leading banks with a truly global reach.

The system demonstrated used the Precision Time Protocol (PTPv2) to deliver GPS time to a trading server. A simple application then steers the system clock to within nanoseconds of UTC time. Using PTP in this scenario however does not just deliver nanosecond time to a single Linux server; but delivers nanosecond synchronisation of time across a large number of servers in a location, and ultimately in many locations throughout the world.

The use of technology developed for the telecoms industry also allows for a much simpler implementation than in more traditional PTP systems. "There has been a massive development effort in packet timing for telecoms applications in the last five years" said Chronos' Managing Director Charles Curry. "We are able to leverage this work to deliver an all Gigabit Ethernet solution for accurate time; potentially to hundreds if not thousands of servers in a single system. Using this technology, and working closely with our partners Korusys, we can deliver this level of time synchronisation in a very simple network; no special switches are needed to deliver this world beating time accuracy."

Korusys Director Vernon Middleton explained "The work we've done does not just deliver accurate time to the server, but to the applications themselves. We can deliver nanosecond time synchronisation simply by deploying our PCI card and KoruSync application. Deploying this technology can really give an edge in high speed and high volume trading environments; we really are raising the bar here without any complications for the trading applications."

"The true value of our solution is in its simplicity and scalability" said Charles Curry. "A single GPS deployment will allow time to be served to hundreds of clients or just one. Adding more servers to the synchronised network is simply a matter of connecting the Korusys client to the existing PTP network; the PTP algorithm does the rest."

Korusys' PCI card is available now.  KoruSync is also available initially for servers running Red Hat Linux but easily ported to any Linux distribution. Chronos can assist with the design and rollout of an appropriate timing network; whilst also fully supporting and implementing timing products.

About Chronos Technology

Established in 1986, Chronos is an ISO 9001:2008 approved specialist provider and system integrator of technical solutions for synchronisation, time of day and remote monitoring applications in telecom networks.  Chronos also supplies RF and GNSS components and accessories for GPS, Galileo & GLONASS applications used in location, positioning, navigation and communications industries and for military applications.

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