Middleware in trading

One of the most interesting uses of middleware is in Ranger, a software suite being marketed by New York-based Inventure, vendor of the widely used foreign exchange option pricing application Fenics. Ranger offers quantitative analysts and traders Web-based access to data and analytics, eliminating the need to construct a data warehouse, according to Michael Adam, Inventure's chairman. Designed for use in trading environments, Ranger leaves the data-information on positions and transactions, market feeds, pricing algorithms, and statistical, analytic routines-where they are, under control of the people who collect and maintain them.

Says Adam: "Creating a data warehouse sets in stone the form of the information placed in the data warehouse. But analysts need to work in a framework where you can't predict the requirements.Analysts are always being asked new questions.

"You have to have a new data set if you open a new office in a new country and trade a new currency or if you begin trading a new financial instrument.

Adam describes middleware as the "plumbing" of Ranger. This middleware maintains the integrity of the data, guaranteeing delivery and ensuring that the receiver is entitled to receive the data.The simplest form of Ranger uses the Internet's HTTP messaging protocol as its middleware. Ranger is also being implemented with Java streams, which contain another messaging protocol. Adam says that Inventure is also looking into incorporating TIB Rendezvous, TIBCO's messaging middleware platform. Ranger is in use at Koch Industries, the privately held international trading company, and Amoco, as well as a number of banks. -JO.