Important Notice regarding European Futures

[redsnapper]

And that`s it:
The true meaning of "american way of life" for european future-traders:
Shut your trading application @ market-open, finish the cup of coffee, and go for a walk in the fresh white snow! CARPE DIEM!
redsnapper

[Major]

Or switch to trade the US markets when they open. That's what I do.

[Momentum]

I spoke too soon...

Eurex survived the Economic numbers release but not the U.S. open.

Nothing seems to have changed for the better.

I for one, and probably most of your customers that trade European markets, would like to know when this problem is going to be resolved, if at all.

By now, you must know what the problem is and what it will take to fix it.

Please let us know a drop dead date by which time we can expect timely non latent European futures data.

Thanks

Tom

[HalTwo]

I agree completely. I went ahead and paid on 1/21 on both accounts and of course would not get a refund as i am now paid up to 2/22.


But after almost a month, it is time to either get this fixed.
I am looking forward to an *expected* date when these problems will be fixed. You owe your customers that much

I have seen where esignal has purchased the other data company it will be a bad day when our only choices are esignal

And yes I do trade the sp emins and big sp, but I like trading the dax futures much better [longer swings [they average over 30pts] etc, but I pay to also receive dax data as well.

[ScottJ]

With the problems this week at the open, it's been difficult to see any improvements in the feed but we do feel we've made some headway. Since several of you have asked to get more technical information, let me try to explain the situation in a bit more detail so at least you all have more information.

All the feeds for our European Equities and 3 European Futures Markets (Eurex, Liffe and Euronext) are being processed by a production system in London. The data is then passed to an Alpha server in London, then sent from that system to our redundant ticker plants in California and Utah. It's then distributed to all our co-location server farms. Individual customers then connect to one of these co-lo farms to get data.

Most of the recent difficulties have centered around the configuration and processing w/in the production system in London. This machine is also used for many other processes and must "multi-task" to serve the various outputs. This is the main reason we have particular issues when the US markets open, and at key intervals thereafter, when certain data segments are collected off that system.

In contrast, we are taking LME, IPE and Simex direct to that London Alpha and have had relatively no problem delivering steady and reliable data during these past few weeks. This also leads us to see that our routers and available bandwidth are more than adequate to handle all of this data. If increasing our bandwidth to London would solve this problem, we'd do that in a heartbeat. We can clearly see that the delays and outages occur long before the data is sent to the routers and out over the internet.

What are we doing to resolve this? Our engineers continue to work day and night on the configuration of the production system to parse out the various functions and increase the priority of the realtime data. Unfortunately, due to the urgent nature of this situation, we aren't always able to extensively test the changes and in some cases, the outages we've suffered have been a direct result of failed changes.

On a seperate front, we are working towards moving those 3 European Futures feeds direct to the Alpha server, with the order of priority being Eurex, Liffe, then Euronext. In between making constant refinements to the current configuration, we are scoping what needs to be done and how long it will take. Once we have a firm plan, we will certainly post that information.

We realize this situation has been very difficult on our customers. We do want you to know that we are exhausting all avenues and using every available resource to combat these performance issues.

I hope you find this additional background information useful.

Thanks.

[jeffch]

Thanks for a pretty detailed and open response Scott. As a systems and network engineer and administrator, it's interesting to hear some of the progress being made. For example it's interesting that the bottleneck has been isolated to computing and not networking. I assume if there were an easy way to eliminate that bottleneck it would already have been done. I won't try to second guess your guys designs on scalability, modularity, multiprocessing, etc.

A better question is why the old feeds could not have been kept on standby to revert back to in case the new ones didn't work out in production. I would think that would have been wise operationally. If I were the boss, I would be taking a look at (replacing) who was responsible for that decision.

I don't have any personal complaints since I use the U.S. market data only, but I can understand the frustration of those who depend on the European data.

[redsnapper]

Scott!
Thanks for your honest information, I don`t think there can be too much of it, as we get a chance to understand the issues. Also, it`s a bit late...
Has eSignal ever thought of sending direct mails to european futures subscribers? I would love to get a mail, that tells me, that trading is useless today, or for the next hours, ( I got no correct data for two hours on from US opening, only today, not to speak of the messed up charts and indicators for the last weeks), so I wouldn`t have to sit there, fully prepared, staring at the screensaver...
If I would own eSignal, I would apologize with a little present for my customers, just to show them that I care, and that I know, that my reputation is one of my main assets in this fast moving time...
greetings,
redsnapper
P.S.: Im a bit woried by your expression "relatively no problem " as I experienced lags not only due to US market, but during the whole time, when Eurex speeds up.
That is "relatively no problem", but to me completely unacceptable.
It comes down to "reliable data" or scrap...

[jeffch]

I experienced lags not only due to US market, but during the whole time, when Eurex speeds up.

Hi redsnapper,
As a fellow customer I would say that if you are getting lags all the time, whereas other customers only get them occasionally, even during busy times on the Eurex, then there may be an issue with your particular network connection or even computer. ISP networking lags are perhaps the most likely. For example if you are on a cable modem, lag can happen when other users on your network segment download files, etc. Even DSL and T-1s/E-1s can get slow if the provider's equipment or network are overloaded. If you private message me your IP address, and the times it gets slow, I can probably analyze your ISPs network for you.

[ScottJ]

Redsnapper:

P.S.: Im a bit woried by your expression "relatively no problem " as I experienced lags not only due to US market, but during the whole time, when Eurex speeds up.
That is "relatively no problem", but to me completely unacceptable.
It comes down to "reliable data" or scrap...

In that paragraph, I'm referring to the performance of Simex, IPE and LME over these past few weeks. They seem to be functioning very well and give us good reason to move forward with our plans to configure the other 3 European Futures Markets in the same manner.

Hope that clarification helps.

Thanks.

[HalTwo]

No it is not due to his isp or any other computer related problem. I have 2 esig accounts [much bandwidth - 2dsl lines, 1 cable modem line and a dedeciated line] The delays are DEFINITELY there. Those who say they are not experiencing delays are because they have nothing to compare esignal to. I have tenfore as well as j-trader, ib tws and [nothing to do with european data] a dedicated globex terminal.

I really do hope that this problem gets *completely* cured [NO DATA INTERUPTIONS & NO *LAG*]

[jeffch]

Originally posted by HalTwo
Those who say they are not experiencing delays are because they have nothing to compare esignal to.

OK Sounds reasonable. It sounds like they're on the right track for fixing things, and that's encouraging.

[redsnapper]

@scott:
Thanks, I think I understand...
@jeff:
Thanks for offering your help, but I think HalTwo is right, as I´m experiencing no delays on the TWS (my broker app).
When I did US markets, I never experienced such things.
I´m using Metastock to, and think about connecting the TWS to it, as a backup.
redsnapper

[gareth_leachman]

Originally posted by gareth_leachman
Graeme:

Personally I trade the DAX and Stoxx futures.
AX H3-DT
ET H3-DT

presumably it is the same which ever European futures contract is used.

The lag populates the graphs in lagged time, and never gets corrected, so the when is everyday for the last however long on the half hour and at any announcement or US open.

For a specific example see any contract for the 27th from 8am to 9:18.

Hope you guys at E-signal will manage something soon, as I really can't trade at all with any certainty with historic data so messed up.

Thanks.

On another note I see you think that the data is correct except for on the half hour. Today I stopped watching at around 16:00. And the data had never caught up at all from 14:30.

Good luck.

Originally posted 28th
Awaiting some kind of response

[Momentum]

Alpha When?

Scott:

Thanks for the info. I understand what you are doing.

Pls let us know when or even when abouts-you expect the move to be made.

Tom

[TWedler]

Maybe it does neither help nor give any extra info, but today so far the Eurostoxx futures ET H3-DT and all German cash I use have shown a top-notch performance. Keep up the improvement, I am curious what today's US opening brings!