Enhancements Offer Greater Security and Resiliency
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), the leading global network of exchanges and clearing houses, today announced several enhancements to its Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure network (SFTI®), which will offer customers additional capacity, performance and flexibility, while reducing the complexity associated with connecting to multiple market venues.
SFTI is a secure, purpose-built, private multi-participant network that provides customers connectivity to global exchanges and content service providers via dedicated data circuits with a resilient design that ensures no single point of failure exists across the network. Today customers can connect to over 120 global markets and content service providers on the SFTI network. These include the New York Stock Exchange and ICE global markets, as well as alternative trading systems, clearing and settlement services, and market data vendors, such as ICE’s SuperDerivatives, which will be available on SFTI in December 2015.
Driven by the continued demand for market data and increased transaction traffic, ICE has invested in several projects to increase the available capacity and performance of SFTI’s fiber network, and to introduce wireless network alternatives. These planned enhancements include:
Increasing the capacity of its U.S. telecommunications backbone from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps in mid-2016 to meet the growing customer demand for higher capacity.
- In January 2016, SFTI will be expanding fiber-based direct connectivity between its key U.S. access centers in Mahwah, Secaucusand Carteret to provide reduced latency, and enhanced resiliency at competitive pricing relative to incumbent providers.
- SFTI has recently increased customer connection speeds to 40 Gbps at several of ICE’s U.S. based access centers, including East Cermak in Chicago, 111 8th Avenue in New York City and Secaucus and Carteret in N.J., with Mahwah, N.J. scheduled for first quarter, 2016.
- During the first quarter of 2016, SFTI will introduce in the U.S. a wireless technology network between select SFTI access centers and the Mahwah, N.J. data center, subject to effectiveness of proposed rule changes to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- During the first quarter of 2016, SFTI Europe will offer customers access to direct wireless connectivity between the Basildon, U.K.data center and access centers located in London, Slough and Frankfurt. These wireless connection options are designed to offer consistent availability, performance, bandwidth and cost effective pricing to customers seeking alternatives to SFTI’s fiber network solution.
“The updates to the SFTI network enable us to better support our customers’ evolving needs by delivering enhanced reliability, resiliency and security to suit their business requirements,” said Demetrios N. Skalkotos, V.P., Head of Connectivity, ICE Data Services.
Lynn Martin, President and COO of ICE Data Services, added: “ICE has invested to further enhance the SFTI infrastructure, which is the most extensive connectivity infrastructure offered by any global exchange group. We are committed to continuing to enhance SFTI in response to the needs of customers who rely on our technology for mission critical operations, including compliance with regulatory mandates and ensuring security and resiliency.”
