With the Coronavirus pandemic continuing to drive data volumes to new highs, managing trading infrastructure capacity is one of the biggest challenges facing traders today. In an often volatile and fast-paced environment, critical insights can alert traders to when they are reaching capacity limits, helping them to identify when and where upgrades are needed before any latency or reliability issues occur.

Poor capacity planning can result in costly packet drops and missed trading opportunities. For this reason, it’s an essential provision, which has become even more important today, with data volumes believed to be bursting to two, three and even four times normal levels on occasions.

With markets remaining unpredictable for the foreseeable future, effective monitoring and rapid response can turn capacity planning from a threat into an opportunity. By allowing traders to be more flexible and ride the choppy waves when they come, trading firms can capitalize on the volatility and reap the financial rewards that intelligent monitoring tools offer.

Monitoring solutions are nothing new, however, it has been difficult to gain the required level of insights that traders need until now. Traders expect far more than standard IT monitoring and they demand it in real-time. It’s a daily requirement, not something they review at month end.

Recognizing this, TNS is launching TNS Oculus, an online portal that provides financial markets customers with visibility into their TNS services, including performance and utilization tracking.

Real-time Performance Insights and Unparalleled Access

TNS Oculus helps traders address the challenge of managing capacity of their Secure Trading Extranet services by providing real-time network performance data as their traffic flows through their connected devices. Traders can see status updates, current usage levels, alerts and more via more than 200 customization options specific to their portal view. They can also set up new users and tailor the permissions as needed.

TNS Oculus stands apart from other monitoring systems because we provide the same performance data to customers that our own global Network Operating Centers (NOCs) utilizes. This transparent approach provides a complete inventory of all the customer’s TNS services and performance statistics in one place. Armed with this knowledge, client firms can project their future capacity needs with confidence.

Giving Traders Greater Control of their Network

Combined with TNS’ 24x7x365 monitoring, customers can program TNS Oculus with their own alerts to notify them immediately of errors and/or outages. A simple ‘Hot-Spot’ dashboard provides an easy to view status summary and an extra level of control, enabling customers with the ability to respond quickly to capacity concerns and incidents.

TNS Oculus is available now for all TNS’ extranet customers. Empowering our customers with self-service network monitoring in real-time, in addition to the support of TNS’ expert financial services team, will give them the ability to manage their capacity effectively and thrive in these challenging times.

Find out more about TNS Oculus at https://tnsi.com/product/tns-oculus/.

Jeff Mezger is Director of Product Management at TNS with responsibility for its managed services for the financial industry. He oversees product development and strategy for market data, online and data center services.