Case study: Global bank looking for PTP precision timing solutions

A tier 1 global bank is seeking precision timing solutions for trading, investment, and cryptocurrencies. This would be deployed globally, across 14 different locations to replace existing NTP timing solution.

Client

This major international bank has a significant global presence and would like to maintain regulatory compliance for trading. The frequency of trading transactions would require granularity and accuracy that is not supported by their current standard NTP deployment.

Problem

The capital markets team within the bank needed to not only meet regulatory compliance but also ensure the service was maintained to avoid incurring penalties in the event an unsolicited audit was carried out.

Having initially deployed a well-known NTP feed, the lack of timing expertise in-house and lack of reporting provided with the existing application quickly identified that they needed to consider an alternative solution that would serve their stakeholders adequately and maintain compliance.

Having to maintain expertise of any niche service can be difficult and if not diverse, enough may be an exposure in the event of an issue or major outage.

Solution

Following an initial review with the capital markets team and having understood the current position, a technical assessment was carried out to determine the existing infrastructure and components. An initial investment had already been outlaid (the previous feed only service), so it was important to consider where any existing investment may be leveraged.

In collaboration with Universal, we put together a number of workshops for the technology teams of the bank that ran in parallel with the investigative activities so that everyone was aligned with the findings and proposed solutions that best fitted the bank’s current and future requirements.

The workshops were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of utilising redundant timing sources as well as measuring and understanding recovery methods used by the different slave software. Being able to run a proof of concept (POC) across on-prem and cloud services highlighted the effectiveness of the global reporting capabilities within Hoptroff Traceable Time as a Service (TTaaS®).

We worked with the client to understand their infrastructure requirements and put together a bespoke proposal for providing accurate time synchronisation. Precision tooling was key during the POC phase for demonstrating purposes and furthermore post implementation to validate the expected results.

Our team has developed a range of software-based timing solutions to deliver precise, scientifically measured, and accurate time synchronisation with trusted timestamps. With the highest levels of accuracy, and cutting-edge adaptive control capability, this technology has a range of applications including data collection, compliance and security for global financial markets.

Looking ahead, we are working on zero touch client SW deployments to align configuration and maintain compliance. With Cloud adoption in full flight, a POC for multi-cloud timing synchronisation and validation is being carried out. The approach is to allow services in the cloud to consume CSP based time solution with external validation or the ability for correction where required.

Outcome

No incremental timing hardware or changes to data centre architecture (no grandmaster clocks or satellite timing antenna).

Time feed includes both satellite and terrestrial time sources for added resilience. The various time source feeds provide redundancy in the event of interference, jamming and vendor.

No ongoing maintenance or monitoring as we maintain the clocks and time feeds on the clients behalf.

Successfully installed and fully operational within 90 days from contract signature across 14 locations globally.

Fully traceable and MiFID II compliant timestamps. The bank currently has over 2000 slave clients consuming time over the new solution all of which are reporting continuous traceability.

We can scale quickly to cover additional expansion and integrate with data centre operations as and when required.

Following the project kick off, the Universal team took care of the upfront logistic challenges such as circuit orders, Datacenter component provisioning and turn-ups. In parallel, the provisioning team arranged a cutover plan, which entailed scheduled migrations (from the old solution) and failover tests. Each certified with a test results certificate.

The bank opted for a Managed Service wrap around the solution that offered L1/L2 alerts and reporting on any timing related issues, a T3 timing expert, Client/Slave tuning and support, reporting review and timing log with data storage for up to 7 years.

Ready to learn more?

Hoptroff Traceable Time as a Service (TTaaS®) is a range of network and software-based timing solutions that are simple, resilient, and cost-effective.

Whether you need the security of verifiable time for compliance, or sub-microsecond delivery into your data centre, our obsession with accuracy will transform your business.