Cisco's Nexus 3548 Low Latency Switch Targets High Frequency Trading

Cisco introduced its lowest latency data center switch to date -- the Cisco Nexus 3548 with Algorithm Boost (Algo Boost). The Cisco Nexus 3548, which promises network-access performance as low as 190 nanoseconds (ns), is specifically optimized for high performance computing, high performance trading, and big data environments.

Specifically, the Nexus 3548 one-rack-unit (1RU) 10 GB Ethernet switch running in "warp mode" offers latencies as low as 190 ns in those environments with small to medium Layer 2 and Layer 3 scaling requirements. This makes it the fastest full-featured Ethernet switch on the market, according to the company.

Cisco's Algo Boost technology is integrated in the ASIC switching silicon to provide granular visibility into how the switch is performing. The switch leverages Precision Time Protocol to keep the entire infrastructure highly synchronized, enabling trading firms to correlate network events and better achieve regulatory compliance and digital forensics. Active Buffer Monitoring proactively monitors and alerts users to congestion points that could be occurring and may negatively impact application performance.

Cisco is also supporting Intelligent Traffic Mirroring, which consists of filtering and nanosecond time-stamping of captured traffic. This can help traders gain greater visibility into why gapping, slippage and slow order situations occur, correlating these trends with analytics tools to help enable smarter trading decisions.

Cisco said these capabilities in the new Nexus 3548 can give traders a competitive advantage in globally interconnected financial markets.

"Today, Cisco has leapfrogged our competitors in delivering a full featured switch that offers the lowest latency Ethernet in the networking industry. The Nexus 3548 with the unique Cisco Algo Boost technology implemented in ASIC provides a robust feature set to give financial traders more control over their sophisticated trading algorithms and respond more quickly to the changes in the market. In addition to the performance, this unique ultra-low-latency Ethernet technology is part of the unified data center fabric and offers strong total cost of ownership for commercial high-performance computing and big data environments as well as scale-out storage topologies," stated David Yen, senior vice president of Data Center Group at Cisco.