Boat Enlists Colt, BT for Data Hosting

Boat, set up by a consortium of nine banks to take advantage of the pre- and post-trade transparency requirements of the European Union's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, will locate its core systems at two sites—one hosted by Colt and the other by BT Radianz.

The decision to use a choice of sites not only provides greater resilience, but also offers more flexibility for contributors and distributors of Boat's data, who can choose between three different options when connecting to Boat: a connection from Colt to both sites; a connection from BT Radianz to both sites; or a connection from both Colt and BT to ensure fully redundant connectivity.

While contributors and distributors are responsible for ordering their own network connections to the datacenters, sources say that most existing and prospective members already have relationships with at least one, if not both network service partners.

Whether firms require additional bandwidth to connect to Boat will depend on the nature of their existing relationships with the network providers. Based on anticipated volumes, sources expect that contributors will need a two megabits per second (Mbps) connection to be able to contribute pre- and post-trade data to the venue. Once that data is aggregated, distributors are likely to require a 10 Mbps connection to access the resulting feed.

Each of Boat's sites will also be equipped with 10 Mbps Internet connections. This will allow the trade reporting facility to publish data via its own Web site, with Internet traffic routed to each site via a "round robin" solution. Colt and BT Radianz will also provide 10-megabyte circuits from each datacenter to Cinnober's operation sites in Stockholm, where the Swedish exchange technology vendor will provide remote technical support in conjunction with on-site engineers.

A function in Cinnober's application layer guarantees complete redundancy across both sites. Data is only delivered to end-users once the site that collects contributed data receives confirmation from the secondary site that the data has been replicated. This ensures that data delivery is synchronized between both sites.

To ensure business continuity, the two datacenters are located just under 10 miles apart, and communicate via a 100 Mbps circuit. "If you're going to have proper redundancy that can provide business continuity, then sensible geographic separation is key," says Stephen Kimsey, principal at UK-based Kimsey Consulting.

Officials from Colt and BT Radianz decline to comment on the infrastructure, as does Cygnet Consulting, which provided the initial management of Project Boat. Markit Group, which is providing commercial management for the venture, also declines to comment.