Today Aegis Software announced the Version 6 release of its Exchange Simulator trading system test product.
The software has been enhanced to simulate 18 trading destinations with full support for the underlying protocols. New features include eQuote support (NYSE); multi-legged spreads using FIX 4.4 (ISE); peg-to-market and reserve orders (ARCA); and support for high-volume trading and market data. Aegis also announces the addition of Wachovia Securities as a licensee of the Version 6 release.
Exchange Simulator 6.0 offers simulation of ARCA, BOX, BRUT, BTRADE, CBOE, CME, INET, ISE, LAVA, NYSE and NASDAQ. Supported exchange protocols include FIX, CMS, CTCI, OUCH, QIX, and XML. On a quad-CPU system, performance has been increased to cross 2000 orders/second while processing real-time market data on 5000 symbols - a feature used extensively to test algorithmic trading platforms. Support for European and Far East exchanges is planned for 2006.
Exchange Simulator is designed for use by developers, QA and production support personnel, and functions as an "in house" destination for simulated order crossing. As a company-wide resource, on and off-shore users can access the system simultaneously, each testing in their own isolated "sandbox". A wide range of functional, regression, performance and exchange-compatibility tests are available out of the box.
"Often, a prospective end user must cost-justify the purchase of our system to upper management", said Norm Friedman, Vice President of Aegis Software. "It's never a difficult sell; one errant order can cost many millions of dollars. To paraphrase an old aphorism, you can't be too rich, too thin or do too much testing of a trading system."
Exchange Simulator is part of the Aegis Software testing suite, which also includes Client Simulator for testing of inbound FIX order flow, and T3, for overall, end-to-end regression testing of trading infrastructures.