Latency Equalization

Cboe/Equinix Latency Equalization Infrastructure provides an equal optical length of fiber to customers connecting in the NY4 or NY5 Secaucus, NJ data centers.

Fiber cross connects to customer cages are run from Equinix Latency Equalized Hubs using equal lengths of single-mode fiber to each customer cage. The additional slack fiber is stored on the Cboe side of the cross connect. Regardless of the customer's distance from the Equinix Latency Equalized Hub, the fiber spool length is identical.

Latency Equalized Hubs within NY4/NY5 are connected via fiber trunks to the gateway servers in the NY5 data center. Since the NY5 Latency Equalized Hub is much closer to the gateway servers, these fiber trunks connect through additional lengths of fiber to replicate the distance between NY4 to NY5. It is imperative that customers order cross connects only in their local data centers. For example, the Letter of Authorization (LOA) for a customer cage located in NY4 will specify a NY4 demarcation. In this scenario, attempting to order a NY4-to-NY5 cross connect would greatly increase your fiber distance and overall latency to the matching engine in NY5, duplicating the latency equalized engineered distance.

Customers with cages outside of NY4/NY5 Secaucus campus or WAN connections should order cross connects to the NY4 Latency Equalized Hub for the lowest latency.

Every customer fiber path and trunk are tested end-to-end using a proprietary Optical Backscatter Reflectometer (OBR).

Total one-way latency represented is measured from the customer fiber handoff to the Environment ToR switch egress point, prior to the Gateway server NIC, based on the average using 128byte packet size.

Finally, the fiber patch between assigned demarcation point and the Cboe outside network device is adjusted to a custom length, ensuring the total fiber optical length is within acceptable tolerances.