Effortless Publish and Subscribe Of Real Time Data in Excel
By: Steve Bagley
INTRODUCTION
Many challenges and trials came before the development of an alternative that can efficiently accommodate real-time market data. The advancements provided applications with the ability to recognize correct data, discover the precise location where data needs to be collected as well as an application that can distribute this data to the exact place at the precise time. Among the innovations completed to reduce the obscurity of the distributed applications is the technology that can publish/subscribe real-time data. Publish/Subscribe System The publish/subscribe system added a data model to messaging. This enabled the application to spot the correct data as well as choose to send the data when this data is already available. The messages can pass between the communication systems without the help of intermediate servers. The publish/subscribe system’s data model can provide evaluations on the communication systems to identify any natural redundancy and faults. The chief communication systems are liable for selecting the right data to be sent, the exact place where data should be sent, and the precise time data requires to be sent. These systems are useful when it comes to quick distribution of important information all over the organization.
FOR EFFORTLESS PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE REAL-TIME DATA IN EXCEL
ExPDA is an Excel Publish/Display Application developed by Derivative Trading Systems that can support real-time data sharing throughout an organization. It is an application that allows users to import real-time data into Excel, publish real-time data to various Excel users and allow authorized users to subscribe and publish data via private networks, LAN or the internet. It proves valuable to Excel users who aim to: Share real-time data Add value to data and publish it to selected users in a protected environment Collect real-time data from spreadsheets of other users and aggregate that data into other storage areas Collect real-time data from spreadsheets of other users and submit that data to data vendors for redistribution Low latency solution and the capacity to immediately modify protocols to match any network architecture
ExPDA’s Architecture Diagram
Here are the components of Derivative Trading Systems’ ExPDA: Multiple feed handlers Forward handler Excel add-in Low latency data transmission protocol
Below is a simple architecture diagram of ExPDA:
Below is an Example on how ExPDA can share and add business specific value to foreign exchange information:
THE PROBLEM:
ABC Bank wishes to supply real-time data prices to its F/X sales desk so that they do not have to submit to the F/X dealer. However, the dealer wishes to maintain control on the quoted prices in order to reflect all positions he may be holding or his perspectives on the market. He does not approve of the Sales staff working out of the wholesale market prices.
THE SOLUTION:
ExPDA enables the dealer to grab real-time wholesale prices so he can distribute them (by way of “messages”) onto his sales staffs which in turn quote the wholesale prices to customers. The dealer has real-time control of the quoted prices and he now has the capacity to limit deal sizes in various currencies depending on his position at any given time. ExPDA can acquire real-time market data from sole vendors, multiple vendors or from the internet. The vendors for real-time market data include Bloomberg, Reuters RMDS and the internet. ExPDA’s developer, Derivative Trading Systems, designed its feed handlers to make real-time market data accessible to authorized Excel users. Below is an example of the F/X dealer completing the set up of a Quote sheet that contains real-time data acquired from various sources:
By using ExPDA to request the needed records, the F/X dealer can take in the real-time market prices into his Excel spreadsheet and he can then “add value” to the real-time market prices
before deciding to publish them out to the sales team. In addition, the Excel sheet is configured to publish in real-time the deal size limits that the F/X dealer collects from the sales team.
The image above is the “Top of Book” Excel sheet given to every member of the sales team. By using ExPDA, the “Top of Book” Excel sheet receives the F/X dealer’s real-time customer prices in which are displayed in a clear and presentable manner. ExPDA allows the F/X dealer to choose who can access the real-time customer prices through its “Admin module”. This process can be done across the transaction room or even across the globe. In addition, the Excel sheet includes the deal size limits that the sales team can quote before referring back to the F/X dealer.
CONFIGURING EXPDA TO REQUEST, PUBLISH AND SUBSRCIBE TO DATA
Setting up ExPDA involves the following three simple steps such as request data, publish data and subscribe to data. Below are the details:
Step 1 Request Data
The process’ primary step is the requesting of a real-time data record. The request can be from any or all of the following: Internet data sources 3rd party data vendors and exchanges Paid and free data from Internet sources
Note: the value of ExPDA is not only for real-time data, its value is also providing efficiency in updating data throughout a number of Excel users. Below is an example of a user adding the GBP/USD F/X record to cell C 10:
As you can see on the image above that the user has clicked the right mouse button. Clicking the right mouse displays the “Request Record…” option. By selecting the “Request Record…” option from the excel menu, a dialogue will appear. Below is what the dialogue looks like:
The “dialogue” enables Excel users to add real-time data into cells in their spreadsheets thus allowing them to select the data feed as well as record details.
Step 2 Publish Data
Subsequent to adding value to the data, the user can decide to publish data to the ExPDA forward handler to allow other users to subscribe. Below is an example of user publishing data from cell L10.
The “Publisher” provides a name for the “Record” and number for the “Field Number”. The name for the “Feed” is automatically provided for the user. For example: the name for the “Record” can be “GDP/USD Customer” and the number for the “Field Number” can be 1 for mid price. Note: For security purposes, a comment is placed in each cell containing the details for the published records. The time when the user has set up his ExPDA, is the time he is able to provide a “feed” name for himself (which in this case is “stevesfeed”). In the process of configuring the Record description and Field number, the user is able to store them in the ExPDA server thus enabling subscribers to request.
Step 3 Subscribe to Data
After completing request and publish of data, an authorized user can choose to access “steevesfeed” so he can again subscribe to that data by using the menu selection that appears after clicking the Excel right mouse button.
The “subscriber” dialogue that appears after right clicking the mouse, enable users to specify the data they wish to update in the Excel spreadsheet. The user or subscriber can choose a cell in Excel that he can request for a record of. There is an available easy to follow and read dropdown lists of record names, field numbers and feed names. In ExPDA’s next version, there will be a web based selection tool that incorporates different data sources.
ExPDA has been tested on spreadsheets that contain thousands of cells that are configured to receive static and real-time data and it proved to run successfully. Clearly, there are a few dependencies on the speed of the processor yet performance also relies on speed of the network and bandwidth interconnection when conveying data between centers. The only observable delay when using ExPDA to configure Excel sheets is when a sheet is opened for the first time. In other words, updating the sheet that contains thousands of cells that are configured to take in real-time data for the first time is the only time you can experience delay. The infrastructure of ExPDA has gone through years of alpha and beta examination and has proved to exceed the expectations in terms of lowering latency.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: You can watch this introduction video of ExPDA: Simple F/X Dealing System Built with DTS's ExPDA
To experience the efficiency of DTS tools, click the image below to avail the FREE trial version: