STAC Benchmark Council: "Why didn’t we do this before?"

Tech geeks quaff Scotch and Guinness, join working groups. NEW YORK - 17 December 2007 -

The first general meeting of the STAC Benchmark Council took place on 17 December 2007 at Credit Suisse in New York.  Despite the proximity to the holidays, 74 representatives of 40 firms attended to make connections with their peers in the industry and share views on technology, measurement, and the Council.  The event prompted one attendee to say: "This is super.  Why didn’t we do this before?"

Andy Brown, CTO of Infrastructure at Credit Suisse, kicked off the meeting with some remarks on the technical challenges facing securities firms today and his belief in the valuable role of STAC and the STAC Benchmark Council (thanks for that, Andy!).  The STAC team then presented an overview of the Council: why standard benchmarks are necessary, how the Council is organized, and the role that STAC is playing as a catalyst.  A lively discussion followed.  To view the presentation, click here .  For an annotated version, click here .  (You must be a registered  STAC subscriber to download these.  To register for free, click here .) Afterwards, the attendees socialized over Scotch and Guinness, in honor of Lord Kelvin, who died 100 years ago that day.  Kelvin was the physicist (claimed by both the Irish and the Scots) who coined what has become a STAC manifesto: "If you cannot measure [something], your knowledge is meagre and unsatisfactory."

Among the event’s concrete outcomes, several people stepped up to join working groups, including the STAC-M (market data) working group, whose first task is completing a benchmark spec for direct exchange feed solutions, and the STAC-A (analytics) working group, which is currently focused on benchmarks for Event Processing Platforms (EPP, sometimes loosely called Complex Event Processing).

Once again, we’d like to thank our hosts, Credit Suisse (especially Rick Alm), and the vendors who helped to underwrite the event: Intel, IBM, HP, Aleri, Red Hat, and Novell.

The Council is now accepting memberships from trading firms and suppliers of trading technology.  If you are interested in joining or are not sure whether your firm is a member, please email council@STACresearch.com.