High-resiliency network keeps IRESS operating

When it comes to share trading, timing is everything. That’s why, in 2006, IRESS Market Technology decided to replace its outdated frame relay/ISDN hybrid network with a primary Optus fibre WAN with full redundancy provided by Uecomm’s ethernet network.

As a principal supplier of share market and wealth management systems in Australia, and with 30% of all Australian orders placed on the ASX completed via its systems, it was imperative that IRESS was able to ensure maximum resiliency in its network.

“It is critical to IRESS’ business that we have a network that offers our customers extremely low latency and high resiliency,” explains Dale Monger, Head of Global Networks for IRESS.

“Particularly when a delay of just milliseconds has been quoted to equate to potential revenue losses in the hundreds and thousands of dollars,” he said. “For IRESS, our competitiveness in the market is driven by the service delivery we provide for our customers. We simply cannot settle for anything less than what our new network offers.”

With national presence in Australia as well as in New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, IRESS provides brokers, research analysts, derivative traders, fund managers and financial planners with online share trading and ordering tools.

Prior to switching to a fibre WAN and the Uecomm redundant ethernet network, IRESS operated on a frame relay/ISDN network with speeds ranging from 128 K up to 1 Mbps. This low bandwidth meant that some data required compression, which increased the potential for delays in the ordering process.

Uecomm services also connect IRESS’s clients to its network with capacity ranging between 2 and 10 Mbps.

Despite the obvious business benefits achieved from greater resiliency and capacity, a key driver for IRESS to utilise Uecomm as its network service provider for its redundant network is its ability to provision new client sites quickly and with minimal disruption to service.

“Typically, we experience a 10% relocation rate with clients which requires an ongoing process of network additions and reconfiguration,” explains Monger.

“Uecomm works with us to ensure each new site provisioning has no impact on network resiliency or service delivery, designing parallel builds and service cutover. I’ve worked with fibre service providers all over the world, and can safely say that Uecomm’s service delivery is world class. ”

For IRESS, the assurance provided by Uecomm’s 24/7 Network Operations Centre (NOC) staffed by qualified engineers was of critical importance.

“As a customer, we have access to technically competent people who take ownership of a problem. We’re able to deal with engineers who know how to remedy the issue, rather than customer service representatives who simply troubleshoot from scripted questions,” said Monger.

“We’ve got peace of mind that our network is secure with the proactive monitoring and quick issue response times from the Uecomm NOC,” he added.