Compaq's Alpha Servers to power Data Broadcasting's ticker plant

Hayward 23 Sep 99 Data Broadcasting Corporatio, a provider of real-time financial market data to traders and individual investors, today announced the installation of Compaq's Alpha servers to power both of DBC's ticker plant data centers. This new, state of the art, processing capability ensures that Data Broadcasting's more than 15,000 eSignal subscribers are further guaranteed true real-time market data and provided the time-advantage to capitalize on the market's moves.

"Integrity, reliability and speed are among our most important assets when it comes to winning and retaining our customers' confidence and loyalty," said Mark Imperiale, president of DBC. "Compaq Alphas provide the processing power to enable the fastest data feed, even at peak times. This infrastructure investment strengthens our leadership and, at the same time, gives us the horsepower to add even more data and functionality to our already comprehensive services."

Imperiale added: "The speed and capacity of Compaq's Alphas are even more important today as we prepare for the move to extended trading hours, decimalization and multiple listing of options. These market changes will dramatically increase demand for broader and faster data. A continually upgraded infrastructure is essential to accommodate the rapidly growing number of individuals who require real-time, actionable financial data."

Over the next year a better than 200% increase in message rates is expected by Nasdaq to accommodate the upcoming decimalization of market information. Trading levels are also anticipated to commonly reach 2.0 billion shares each day.

Marc Batten, DBC's director of market data systems, added: "With the Alphas, DBC is well armed to handle the projected increases in traffic and trading volume and to add information, such as securities data from more foreign markets, government issues, and corporate bonds, for our customers."

The Alpha servers are a powerful addition to the DBC network infrastructure that includes redundant servers across two ticker plant data centers. DBC's servers utilize multiple Internet access points across multiple vendors to ensure the highest reliability. In addition, a redundant high-speed IP multicast feed running over private networks supplies financial data to all sites, while maximizing bandwidth efficiency and supporting the fastest delivery.

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