Cinnober has released version 8.0 of its TRADExpress Trading System. The system is used by Alpha Trading Systems, the London Metal Exchange and, for the moment, Turquoise. Development priorities have been further reduced latency and increased flexibility. Performance benchmarks are to be released shortly. 

In addition to efficiency improvements in the system protocol and business logic, new deployment options have been added in version 8:

• Configuration of standby servers: The option to use application level asynchronous replication between primary and standby servers has been introduced. The system can be deployed with a primary and secondary setup with synchronous replication, and a third setup with asynchronous replication for further resilience. Or it can be deployed with only a primary and a secondary setup with either synchronous or asynchronous replication. Using asynchronous instead of synchronous replication radically reduces the response time while the system still maintains the capability for controlled recovery.
• Integration of server processes: The marketplace can now choose to integrate the access point for incoming orders with the matching engine in the same server process in order to reduce end-user latency.  The option to run the access point and matching engine in separate instances is still available, and can be used in parallel with the new deployment option if desired.
• Multicast of unsolicited messages: Support for multicast of unsolicited messages to end-users has been added. Distribution through multicast instead of TCP/IP unburdens the outgoing access points.
• Amended replication model for FIX messages: Replication of FIX messages to the FIX standby server has been made asynchronous while maintaining synchronous transaction semantics - so there is no risk of losing any transactions at a potential failover. This radically reduces the response time for FIX users.
• Improved internal protocol efficiency: A number of improvements have been made to make the internal protocol and business logic more efficient.
• Operations and maintenance applications: Enhancements in the operations and maintenance applications have been made to improve the handling of large data volumes, and improve usability. 

Trading System versions 6 and 7 continue to be suppoted. The first customer upgrade to version 8 begins in the first quarter of 2010.