Options

CameronFIX customers can select additional components to further enhance and enrich the capabilities of their CameronFIX solution. These include:

Scheduling

Designed with global 24h trading in mind, the Scheduler provides the ability to automatically trigger events using a sophisticated timetable that takes account of the different time zones and national holidays and market events.

The scheduler can be monitored and controlled by any operations monitoring application which supports Java Management eXtensions (JMX), such as:

  • HP OpenView
  • IBM Tivoli
  • CA UniCenter

The scheduler can also be managed within a browser based application.

Scheduling FIX Events

The scheduler can be used with the CameronFIX Engine to automate FIX server and session administration tasks. Specific administration tasks which can be automated include:

  • Shutdown FIX Server
  • Start All FIX Sessions
  • Stop All FIX Sessions
  • Perform EndOfDay (EOD) processing on All FIX Sessions
  • Start a single FIX Session
  • Stop a single FIX Session
  • Perform EndOfDay (EOD) processing on a single FIX Session

The schedule can be manually overridden at any time, for example to start a FIX session outside of the normal connection window.

Sub-scheduling can simplify the management of large numbers of FIX connections. For example, a sub-schedule may define public holidays, FIX session start, stop and EOD times for a given geographical region or time zone. This sub-schedule can then be applied to all FIX sessions within that region or time zone.

SSL

To connect to counterparties using SSL, CameronTec provides an SSL option that completely automates the process in a standards-based manner using Sun's reference implementations of the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) and Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE), which are a standard part of Java 1.4 onwards and are free extensions for Java 1.3.

SSL works with the CameronFIX Engine, which is configured for use with an SSLSocketConnection rather than a plain SocketConnection. Once you configure the keys/certificates that your system will present to connecting parties, and the certificates which your system will trust, the SSL option does the rest for you. You can support client side authentication if you need to (as a client) or enforce it if you need to (as a server).

The SSL option can also be used by customers who build the CameronFIX engine into their own Java applications. All of the services that the engine supports are available, plus you can also retrieve and validate the other party's certificate in an application-specific way.

As mentioned, the SSL option is used to connect to a FIX server that requires SSL or to set up a FIX server of your own that requires SSL. It can also be used to build an SSL gateway to a secure FIX network. FIX over SSL is a very effective way of making secure FIX connections across the Internet or any other insecure network, and opens up FIX connectivity for use in services where a VPN cannot be cost justified. CameronTec has implemented SSL in a fully standard way, so the option is capable of connecting to any other FIX engine with a standard SSL implementation.

FIXML

The FIXML transformer enables the CameronFIX Engine to accept FIXML messages. CameronFIX integrates with internal applications over numerous available CameronFIX technology adapters and transforms these messages into regular FIX messages that are then sent to trading partners. Messages received from trading partners follow the opposite route: transformed to FIXML and then sent to an internal application via the selected adapter. This allows standardization on FIXML within an organization while speaking standard FIX tag=value externally to trading partners, the majority of whom do not accept FIXML. The FIXML transformer is designed to work with FIXML 4.4 and 5.

FAST (FIX Adapted for STreamingSM)

The FAST Protocol is a data compaction methodology utilized by the industry to facilitate the efficient exchange of financial data in high volume situations, FAST-encoded CameronFIX delivers smaller transaction messages and faster execution, and lowers the cost of exchanging market data. CameronFIX is available FAST-enabled where data compression capabilities are deeply integrated in the core architecture.

High Availability

CameronTec provides business critical Highly Available FIX (HA) platforms for firms looking to diminish disruption and recovery time caused by hardware or software failure. The Highly Available option provides a continuous FIX service to your trading counterparties and an end-to-end solution protecting all FIX sessions, their associated message processors and trading infrastructure connections.

HA NORMAL MODE

A FIX server cluster comprises a minimum of two machines each running an instance of CameronFIX. The cluster represents a single Highly Available FIX service to the external FIX community. At any one time, the primary FIX server in the cluster handles all FIX traffic. The primary constantly synchronizes with and is monitored by all other FIX engines in the cluster. The secondary or backup engine is always in the same state as the primary engine and always in a state to assume the role of the primary engine in the event of a failure.

HA FAILOVER MODE

In the event of a hardware or software failure on the primary server, the secondary server takes over as the primary, and re-establishes FIX sessions.

HA RECOVERY MODE

Once the fault on the down server has been detected and repaired, this server is re-introduced and synchronized to the cluster and sent to STANDBY mode. The cluster can remain in this operational mode, or the primary server can be manually forced to return to NORMAL mode again.

HA Load Balancing on Multiple Servers

It is possible to configure High Availability in an active/active mode where two or more servers process FIX traffic concurrently and still provide automatic failover. This is achieved by configuring multiple clusters across the same set of servers, each server with multiple instances of the CameronFIX Engine.

High Availability across a WAN

High Availability across a Wide Area Network is used to backup servers at remote sites. In a local Highly Available environment, when both servers are located at the same site, messages sent to the primary are acknowledged by the backup before any processing can continue.

Primary Order

The order of succession of the servers is determined by flexible, Administrator controlled configuration parameters, which define priorities and hierarchy. When a server starts it seeks out the current primary server. If after a given amount of time it cannot find the primary, the highest priority backup server declares itself primary. This enables deterministic primary succession so that Administrators are always aware of the order of failover.

Validator

As its name implies, the Validator option validates incoming and outgoing FIX messages against a user defined set of rules. The rules commonly check for the presence and validate the values of any field. This increases programmer productivity by reducing the amount of complex validation logic in back-end systems and making validation a declarative task rather than a procedural one.