IntercontinentalExchange, has completed a major technology initiative, including the transition of its futures markets to a new, state-of-the-art trading engine for its global electronic trading platform.
The enhancements are the culmination of a two-year initiative to rebuild and optimize the trading platform software, hardware, network and security components to increase speed, access, capacity, reliability and functionality.
The ICE platform now delivers the fastest published round-trip transaction time in the commodity markets, with average transaction times today of 3 milliseconds in ICE futures markets, and a blended average of 7 milliseconds for futures and OTC markets, combined with unparalleled reliability of 99.99% during 2007. The enhancements have also produced consistency in performance, with less than 0.5% of all futures transactions resulting in transaction time over 50 milliseconds.
ICE offers direct access to its electronic markets through the Internet, as well as a broad range of interfaces including dedicated lines, co-location, and telecommunications hubs in the US, Europe and Asia.
In 2007, ICE completed construction of the ICE Global Network between New York, Atlanta, Chicago, London and Singapore, creating a high-speed fibre network between each of these data hub locations and to the primary and secondary data centers. This past weekend, ICE successfully completed the expansion and relocation of its primary data center to Chicago, which now hosts the ICE platform for all electronic markets across all asset classes for futures, options on futures, and OTC markets.
“We made substantial infrastructure investments in 2007 to ensure our participants reap the benefits of the latest innovations in electronic market design. Our talented technology team, led by Edwin Marcial, is dedicated to staying on the forefront of development to ensure we provide the fastest and most versatile, reliable and accessible platform in the industry. We are always looking for ways to enhance our technology and products, while providing round-the-clock technical support to thousands of participants each month.” says Chuck Vice, president and chief operating officer, ICE.
“We utilize a strategic approach in building and managing our technology infrastructure in-house allowing us to focus on market-driven development initiatives. We have completed the final phase of this technology initiative while registering record volume and message traffic and efficiently integrating five businesses, including two newly acquired futures exchanges, two new clearing houses and a new OTC marketplace. We are also completing a software development phase, which will form the basis of our third clearing house, ICE Clear Europe.” adds Edwin Marcial, senior vice president and chief technology officer, ICE.