Nasdaq migrates US options exchange to AWS with +10% performance in round-trip latency
Nasdaq has announced the successful migration of the core trading system of Nasdaq MRX – one of its six U.S. options exchanges – to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
This marks a milestone in Nasdaq’s technology infrastructure as the new cloud-enabled system, using AWS Outposts, continues to deliver a low double-digit microseconds latency for end-to-end and order-to-trade processes.
In addition, the AWS-based market infrastructure has achieved a 10% performance improvement in round trip latency.
Nasdaq announced its partnership with AWS on November 30, 2021, making them its preferred cloud provider for capital markets.
On the cloud: co-location services, market analytics, and machine learning
Tal Cohen, Executive Vice President, Head of North American Markets, Nasdaq, said: “Nasdaq is at the forefront of adopting technologies that will shape the future of the global financial ecosystem. We continue to advance modernization of markets by driving innovation in the underlying infrastructure that power markets to deliver enhanced performance, efficiency, transparency and integrity of the markets we operate. Together with our clients, partners and regulators, we will share our knowledge and expertise to support market infrastructure operators around the world and unlock the transformative power of cloud-enabled technology solutions.”
Brenda Hoffman, Senior Vice President and Head of Technology, U.S. Markets Systems and Investment Intelligence, Nasdaq, commented: “Our markets are responsible for seamlessly transacting hundreds of billions of dollars a day serving millions of investors globally. Therefore, our top priority has been managing our cloud journey while improving our industry-leading latency and resiliency standards that the industry has come to expect from Nasdaq. With the successful migration of MRX, we look to further expand client access to cloud-enabled capabilities including co-location services, market analytics and machine learning, enabling our clients to adopt new services and technologies with agility and flexibility.”
Scott Mullins, managing director, Worldwide Financial Services at AWS, added: “Nasdaq and AWS are changing what’s possible for capital markets with the migration of MRX to AWS, enabling Nasdaq clients to easily and seamlessly transact billions of dollars in trades every day. Nasdaq will use AWS’s proven security and resilience to create new services while delivering improved, low latency performance. We look forward to continuing to support Nasdaq, as we work together to lead the industry into its second decade of cloud adoption.”
Nasdaq and AWS co-designed the ultra-low latency edge computing system for capital markets. The new system achieves the highest standards of performance and resiliency, while meeting Nasdaq’s exacting regulatory requirements, including the obligations to maintain fair and orderly markets, and to protect investors and the public interest.
In addition to moving additional North American markets to a cloud-enabled environment, Nasdaq will leverage learnings from the successful migration towards creating cloud-migration blueprints for its marketplace technology clients. This includes leveraging a hybrid infrastructure for both cloud and edge compute options and providing market operators and participants with added agility to rapidly adjust their operational systems and strategies, as well as innovation capabilities, to keep pace with evolving industry dynamics.
