New York-based trading and low-latency infrastructure technology provider Pico Quantitative Trading is constantly reviewing its network latencies and migrating to faster paths when they become available. “In addition, we review hardware with clients and upgrade either when better hardware is available or when the client’s investment cycles are up,” says Pico founder and CEO Jarrod Yuster.
It also renews its own hardware on regular intervals and when lower latency hardware such as layer one (L1) switching enters the market.
L1 is known as the physical layer and transmits data across physical mediums. In a conventional network switch, data messages received at L1 is passed up the chain to layer 2 or layer 3, where the decision is made on the content of the message. Then, the results are passed back to L1. This takes time, so availability of L1 switching would mean that the decision can actually be made at L1, and hence shorten latency.
Yuster says the company is currently analyzing the viability in a service provider network and migrate to new technology when it is appropriate.
“The fact that we operate a large test lab for hard and software in LD6 (London) has enabled us to not only do these tests in a proper environment but also helped to maintain a stable environment for our clients,” he adds.
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