Options expands European co-lo network
Options, the London-based provider of high-speed exchange connectivity, announced on Sept. 17 that it has added three more European exchanges to its colocation platform, Velocity. With the addition of Nasdaq’s Scandinavian exchange, Switzerland’s SWX and Austria’s Wiener Borse, the platform now covers seven derivatives markets, 14 equity exchanges and two commodity markets in Europe. “With coverage of the tier one markets already cemented, we have set our sights on changing the economics of accessing every market across Europe,” said Ken Barnes, senior vice president for corporate development and head of the firm’s managed business.
Velocity provides a managed environment for the delivery of direct market data, order entry, servers and colocation space, either as a single managed service or individual component services. The platform leverages the fastest WAN links between key centers, high-performance technology from companies like Arista and Solarfl and operational processes developed over 20 years in the business.
In addition to expanding its market coverage, the company recently upgraded some of its fiber pathways in Europe. The expanded pipes will enable the company to “accommodate traffic growth and additional point-to-point routes between our seven data centers in the region,” explained Kieran O’Connor, vice president for marketing.
However, O’Connor noted that performance is not enough to win business by itself any more. “Performance tends to be table stakes these days. You simply cannot win business without being on the fastest routes and cutting-edge switching,” he said. “The larger competitive differences are found in the levels of availability and quality control we can deliver due to stark differences in the levels of procedural discipline and automated testing one finds under the hood,” he said.
In addition, security is beginning to matter more as well. “We’re also finding the level of investment in and maturity of our cybersecurity defenses to be a significant point of differentiation,” he said.
