About ICE
ICE is a Fortune 500 company and provider of marketplace infrastructure, data services and technology solutions to a broad range of customers including financial institutions, corporations and government entities. ICE operates regulated marketplaces , including the New York Stock Exchange , for the listing, trading and clearing of a broad array of derivatives contracts and financial securities across major asset classes.
ICE’s comprehensive data services offering supports the trading, investment, risk management and connectivity needs of customers around the world and across asset classes. As a leading technology provider for the U.S. residential mortgage industry, ICE Mortgage Technology provides the technology and infrastructure to transform and digitize U.S. residential mortgages, from application and loan origination through to final settlement.
IGN connects the global market community to a broad range of data sources supporting financial and commodity data flow, including proprietary and third-party content, as well as unicast access to other exchanges and trading venues, in a secure, efficient manner.
Key Points
- Launched ICE Global Network (IGN) Cloud Connect leveraging the Megaport Software Defined Network (Megaport SDN) to extend data access to the cloud.
- IGN aims to provide secure, high performance, low latency connectivity to unicast financial data. Previously, that data was not accessible within the public cloud.
- Expanded reach of ICE Data Services’ proprietary content over IGN - for example ICE Consolidated Feed, ICE ETF Hub, Pricing & Reference Data.
- Matched level of security and privacy to that which customers experience when connected locally to IGN.
- Many clients are currently leveraging IGN’s Cloud Connect services globally, including asset managers, banks, retail trading, prop trading, surveillance firms, solution providers, and wealth management providers.
Case Study Snapshot
To extend the delivery of its service offerings beyond ICE’s own private network and to offer access to its data via the cloud, ICE leveraged Megaport services to offer market participants secure, dedicated connections to ICE Data Services’ proprietary content and other market data via the cloud. Through the launch of IGN Cloud Connect, ICE has expanded its service to prominent cloud platforms around the globe.
Challenges
Prior to the launch of IGN Cloud Connect, ICE observed that not all of their customers required direct access to the IGN via a physical point of presence. Some of their customers wanted greater flexibility in how they accessed ICE’s business-critical content and services, whilst still requiring the same robust levels of security, dedicated connectivity and low latency in their services. In light of these requirements, and with public cloud services becoming a fundamental part of their customers’ IT architecture, ICE looked to build an offering that leveraged public cloud environments as part of its data-delivery offering. Any cloud-based access would need to parallel on-premises solutions, including secure, low-latency access to ICE Data Services offerings with delivery being directly from the public clouds in addition to specific IGN access points. ICE also needed to ensure their customers could adopt and integrate this new solution relatively quickly and easily.
“ICE has stringent requirements for security, resiliency, and performance for our customers. Any provider we work with must meet our high standards, as well as provide our global customers with speed, choice, and coverage. Megaport’s SDN is a private network purpose-built for capital markets. ICE is pleased to be leveraging Megaport’s services as a part of IGN Cloud Connect.”
Margaret Niche, Head of Global Network, ICE
Solution
In order to meet these customer requirements, ICE developed and launched IGN Cloud Connect, which gives customers access to ICE’s Consolidated Feed, fixed income pricing and analytics, and other data - all via the cloud. Incorporated into this offering is the use of Megaport’s Virtual Cross Connect (VXC) and Megaport Cloud Router (MCR) at key ICE locations, built upon the Megaport SDN. As a result, IGN Cloud Connect enables ICE customers to consume multiple data feeds and unicast services directly and securely from prominent cloud service providers globally.
Moreover, customers now have access to ICE data services from the world’s top public clouds by leveraging 700+ Megaport-enabled data centers.
Benefits
IGN Cloud Connect includes the following benefits to customers:
- Global Coverage — Customers have access to 700+ enabled data centers in 24 countries across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. As IGN Cloud Connect leverages the Megaport SDN, a customer can connect to IGN from any of these Megaport-enabled locations around the globe. This offering is ideal for customers who require secure and low-latency access to IGN without the need to colocate at an IGN location.
- Cloud Provider Neutral — The ability to consume financial data offered through ICE Data Services from any public cloud environment, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
- Security, Resiliency, and Performance — Megaport’s SDN is a private network purpose-built for capital markets that bypasses the public internet.
- Cost Efficiency and Predictability — Fixed monthly fees for bandwidth utilization for connectivity.
- Time to Market — IGN Cloud Connect is pre-connected between IGN and the cloud providers, so connectivity can be provided to a customer in a matter of days, reducing the lead time usually associated with third-party vendors.
- Broad Content Access— ICE Trade (formerly WebICE), ICE Connect, ICE Chat, eSignal, and ICE unicast services (including drop copy and order entry); third-party unicast content, pricing and analytics, continuous evaluated pricing, pricing and reference data, and CDS pricing data can all be accessed via IGN Cloud Connect (subject to applicable terms and fees). IGN Cloud Connect customers also have access to both market data dissemination and bidirectional order flow.
IGN Cloud Connect provides customers with diverse connections in multiple markets for redundancy and protection, as well as access to multiple data feeds and unicast services from prominent third-party content providers.
Use cases include:
| Market Data and Analytics Provider | Retail Broker Dealer | Trade Surveillance and Market Risk Platform | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Challenge | A leading global market data and analytics provider with secondary infrastructure in AWS was looking to efficiently consolidate multiple exchange data sources. | A global retail broker dealer servicing both North America and Asia-Pacific customers wanted to access key US equity and options markets directly from their AWS infrastructure. | A trade surveillance and >market risk platform servicing compliance and risk desks to help identify spoofing, trade abnormalities, and perform pre-trade risk mitigation, wanted to reduce costs by migrating their infrastructure from on-premises to AWS. They were an existing subscriber of ICE unicast data from Latin America and European exchanges and would require access to the same data set plus additional market data directly from their AWS environment. |
| Outcome | Using IGN Cloud Connect, the customer created a fully resilient deployment with subscriptions to multiple global exchanges via ICE Consolidated Feed to power their client-facing applications. | Using IGN Cloud Connect, the customer established secure private connectivity between the NJ-NY triangle, Chicago data center, and the AWS-US-EAST-1 region in order to access ICE Consolidated Feed directly from their AWS environment. The ability to consume this data directly from AWS also facilitated the customer’s onward redistribution over their AWS backbone to China. | Using IGN Cloud Connect, the customer established secure access to the required data via ICE Consolidated Feed, interconnecting their NJ-NY triangle data center and the AWS-US EAST-1 region. |