Manual Chapter :
Introduction
Applies To:
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BIG-IP LTM
- 21.0.0, 17.5.1, 17.5.0, 17.1.3, 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0, 16.1.6, 16.1.5, 16.1.4, 16.1.3, 16.1.2, 16.1.1, 16.1.0, 16.0.1, 16.0.0, 15.1.10, 15.1.9, 15.1.8, 15.1.7, 15.1.6, 15.1.5, 15.1.4, 15.1.3, 15.1.2, 15.1.0, 15.0.1, 15.0.0, 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0
Introduction
Overview of FIX protocol
You can configure the BIG-IP® system to manage electronic trading traffic for both low-latency and intelligent load balancing.
The BIG-IP system supports the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol connections for electronic trading between financial institutions.
The Local Traffic Manager™ (LTM®) FIX profile of the BIG-IP® system allows you to use the FIX protocol messages in routing, load balancing, persisting, and logging connections. The BIG-IP system uses the FIX profile to examine the header, body, and footer of each FIX message. Later, each message is processed accordingly based on the included parameters.
When you acquire a special license, you can use the FastL4 profile to optimize the FIX connections. To minimize jitter, you can use the embedded Packet Velocity® ASIC (ePVA) of iSeries, and ATSE of rSeries. Enable the Late Binding feature in the Fast L4 profile to use an iRule for implementing intelligent load balancing. Then, create an iRule that parses each FIX header to choose a backend server pool.
The BIG-IP system supports the FIX protocol versions 4.2, 4.4, and 5.0, and uses the key-value pair FIX message format.
Benefits of FIX protocol
You can experience:
- FIX reduces the time and installation charges of complex networks that connect various trading terminals situated across different countries.
- Reduced operational risks as it requires minimal manual intervention while processing orders.
- Increases the efficiencies of the trader, broker, or dealer side by reducing the time of price and execution data transmission.
- Order logging mechanism helps in getting audit trail of orders in doing post-trade analysis and for compliance purpose
- Staffing costs for the organization have been reduced as a few traders can do more punching of orders using FIX protocol. FIX APIs are integrated with trading software easily, which has resulted in trading software vendors developing new Algo strategies at a growing rate.
Types of FIX modes
These are the three types of modes available for implementing Electronic trading.
Licensing low latency electronic trading
To use a BIG-IP system to manage low latency electronic trading functionality, you must first acquire a specific license. The license must enable FIX Low Latency features:
- Advanced LTM Protocols
- FIX Low Latency
Please contact your F5 Networks support representative to acquire the necessary license.
