Hi speed trading - hi speed monitoring

[paul at paulgraydon.co.uk (Paul Graydon)]

On 2/16/2012 3:03 AM, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> Nanosecond Trading Could Make Markets Go Haywire
> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/high-speed-trading/
>
> "Below the 950-millisecond level, where computerized trading occurs so 
> quickly that human traders can't even react, no fewer than 18,520 
> crashes and spikes occurred."
>
> Anyone who has managed a network knows that when you look at your 
> MRTG/Cacti graphs at 5min, 10min ,15min intervals - all looks well.  
> Start looking at 1sec intervals and you will see spikes that hit 100% 
> of capacity - even on networks running at 25% average utilization.
>
> I guess trading and networking do have many unseen similarities.
>
> -Hank
>
Anecdotally, I had an interview years ago for a small-ish futures 
trading company based in London.  The interviewer had to pause the 
interview part way through whilst he investigated a 10ms latency spike 
that the traders were noticing on a short point-to-point fiber link to 
the London Stock Exchange.  He commented that the traders were far 
better at 'feeling' when an connection was showing even a trace of lag 
compared to normal than anything he'd set up by way of monitoring (not 
sure how good his monitoring was, though.)

Paul