The NetScout solution will provide highly critical transaction, application and network performance management capabilities. TMX Group selected NetScout because of its unified approach to service assurance providing real-time packet-flow performance management, latency analysis, historical reporting and support for Cisco(R) NetFlow from a single integrated solution.

The TMX Group deployment is leveraging the nGenius Service Assurance Solution for comprehensive, end-to-end real-time and historical service assurance capabilities including the ability to predict emerging performance issues. TMX Group has also selected Sniffer(R) Financial Intelligence, a purpose built specialized module for high-performance capital market environments. Fully unified with the nGenius solution, Sniffer Financial Intelligence leverages the same packet-flow data to provide highly optimized views of order messages and market data feeds to understand latency and performance associated with trade order execution and network performance.

"In our business, we invest in leading edge networking technologies to achieve the highest levels of performance and reliability possible," said Brenda Hoffman, senior vice president and CIO for TMX Group. "Understanding real-time performance and latency dynamics with micro-second granularity has become an absolute necessity. The nGenius Service Assurance Solution from NetScout provided us with a comprehensive and highly scalable approach that can address the volumes in our ultra high performance environment."

TMX Group's key subsidiaries operate cash and derivative markets for multiple asset classes including equities, fixed income and energy. Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, Montreal Exchange, Natural Gas Exchange, Boston Options Exchange (BOX), Shorcan, Equicom and other TMX Group companies provide trading markets, clearing facilities, data products and other services to the global financial community. TMX Group is headquartered in Toronto with offices in Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

TMX Group is using the nGenius Service Assurance Solution to monitor proprietary communications protocols as well as Financial Information eXchange (FIX) transactions over its Cisco-based network. The solution provides visibility into highly complex trade execution flows and streaming market data to identify performance degradation, including latency and dropped packets that could impair the timing precision of a financial trade. TMX Group required a solution that not only identified real-time dynamics, but also supported historical analysis and reporting to perform detailed forensics of performance incidents and provide performance reporting to their clients and partners. With the nGenius solution, TMX Group operations staff can instantly identify and resolve performance issues as they occur, assuring the integrity of the trading environment.

"In the high-stakes world of financial trading, order execution and market data must be delivered with a high degree of precision and reliability. Customer expectations are high, and microseconds matter," said Steven Shalita, vice president, marketing, NetScout Systems. "Assuring and optimizing trading transaction performance levels are an absolute necessity as exchanges and traders expect optimal trade timing. Gaining valuable milliseconds impacts profitability, enables higher order volumes and brings a significant competitive edge in today's fiercely competitive capital markets. With the nGenius Service Assurance Solution, TMX Group will be able to gain a unified perspective of their trading environment, including latency impact and transaction interdependencies that effect order flow and market data feeds enabling them to improve responsiveness, grow transaction volumes and maintain their leadership position in the electronic trading environment."