Information technology
In 2015, the Exchange continued the strategic modernisation of enterprise information architecture for its technical platforms.
Refactoring and upgrades of trading and clearing systems
In 2015, Moscow Exchange launched a new version of the Spectra derivatives trading system that unlike the previous version includes component segregation. Components in this new version communicate via an ultra-fast IBM LLM message bus. Similarly, MOEX also launched the first version of the ASTS+ system used for the Equity and FX Markets. ASTS+ is a deeply refactored ASTS as a preparatory step towards a fully modular architecture.
The ultimate goal of the refactoring is to extend the life span of MOEX’s trading and clearing infrastructure by some 10 years by using a more flexible, adaptable and scalable architecture. Modular systems are also expected to be far more resilient.
Work in this area will continue in 2016 with the introduction of fully modular Spectra and ASTS designs. These new designs will facilitate autonomous operation of the trading module, which will thus not be affected by any failures in the clearing module.
New integration architecture
In line with MOEX’s strategic focus on an integrated approach to creating new application creation, the Exchange developed and introduced the Exchange Information Fabric (EIF) software platform, which is designed to link together several unrelated systems to create new products and services. Three major technological components of the EIF – Data Grid, Calculation Grid, and Enterprise Service Bus – have already been successfully deployed, and a number of applications (Risk Monitor, Waterfall Calculator and the cross-margining algorithm Cantor) using the EIF Platform have already appeared.
The remaining two components of the base platform, Business Process Management Engine and API Gateway, will be completed in 2016. The pipeline of new EIF-based applications includes pivotal projects such as the Unified Collateral Pool service, a production version of Cross Margining, automated processing of user documentation, a new version of inter-market risk netting, and a Sponsored Access Management Portal.
Business projects
In 2015, MOEX rolled out into production new trading systems for the Grain Market and a major upgrade of the equity system for trading Pooled Collateral Repos. The Grain Market system is MOEX’s first major cloud-hosted system. Cloud hosting allows MOEX to scale up its infrastructure base in line with business growth. The repo-system rollout is the first major software release that has undergone a full development and quality assurance cycle governed by the Exchange’s new software production methodology.
Market access
TWIME, a new binary protocol for the Derivatives Market is now available to Derivatives Market participants. The protocol includes improvements in several critical aspects: it significantly reduces access latency, with much tighter latency variance (“dither”), both features highly valued by high-frequency traders. Unlike other MOEX protocols, TWIME has no client footprint at all, which reduces the Exchange’s maintenance costs and prevents access abuse.
Data warehousing
In the area of data management, Moscow Exchange has deployed Exadata Database Machine, which has significantly improved end-of-day data processing speeds and created the foundation for building an enterprise data warehouse.
In 2016 MOEX will also continue building its enterprise data model and the extract, transfer, load (ETL) processes to populate it. The primary fields of application for the warehouse are financial and regulatory reporting.
System reliability and resiliency
Moscow Exchange places great emphasis on the reliability of its trading and settlement infrastructure. To ensure system fault-tolerance, the Exchange has completely changed its network to a segmented topology, replacing many key network components in the process.
MOEX has also introduced a more elaborate and formal software manufacturing process that places high emphasis on early discovery of software defects and innovative software testing methods.
To better manage project flows, finances and resource utilisation, MOEX completed several initiatives to measure actual worktime expenditures, a new cost allocation method based on the IT Service Model, a resource management and allocation process and related tools.
Infrastructure
Moscow Exchange has continued the relocation of its primary data centre to Dataspace. Servers, data storage and network equipment have been installed and are available for testing, and most participants have already started to deploy their equipment in the co-location zone. The switchover to the new data centre is expected in November 2016.