Where are NT8's CQG order routing servers located, exactly?

[flonkle]

Hello,

I recently rented a VPS from Speedy Trading Servers located in downtonwn Chicago. I ran a strategy on NT8 on their VPS and ran the same strategy on NT8 on my local machine in North Carolina. I sent automated entries through this strategy from both the VPS and from my local machine in NC to the CME and executed trades in the NQ futures market. (I use a legacy CQG live data feed through my legacy Ninjatrader account with AMP futures. However, these CQG servers seem to be close to the same as the current Continuum live data feed servers from CQG.)

What is odd is that the orders from my local machine in NC consistently got filled in the NQ market before the orders executed on my VPS located in Chicago did. (I checked my fills against a single tick chart to figure this out.)

How could this be? My VPS is located in Chicago while my local machine is located in North Carolina, yet the CME consistently filled my NC orders before it filled my local Chicago VPS orders. This indicates that my North Carolina orders were reaching the CME exchange before the orders I sent my from VPS in Chicago did.

With this in mind, I ask: where exactly are the actual order routing servers for Ninjatrader's CQG live data feed located? Are these servers separate from native CQG servers and hosted separately by Ninjatrader in some location other than Chicago?

Please explain the exact setup of NT8's order routing servers for CQG live data feeds, where these servers are located, if they are separate from native CQG order routing servers and hosted separately by Ninjatrader, etc.

Thanks in advance for your help with this question.

[flonkle]

I should have mentioned that I sent automated market orders as entries from the same strategy running on both my VPS in Chicago and on my local machine in North Carolina. Thus, whichever market order reached the CME exchange first got executed first in the NQ market.

[NinjaTrader_LuisH]

Hello flonkle,

Thank you for posting on the NinjaTrader forums.

While we are unable to provide a step by step route to answer the question above, I am able to confirm that these are held in Chicago.


It is not a guarantee, however, that the exchange will prioritize your fill just because your 'machine's location' is closer to the exchange.

If anything, we recommend checking your latency to a public server in Chicago such as:

143.244.220.150



Please let me know if there's anything further I can assist with.

[flonkle]

Hello Luis,

What kind of runaround are you trying to pull off. I checked on 2 different IP lookup sites and the ip address you listed, 143.244.220.150, shows up as an IP address in Clifton, New Jersey.

Unfortunately, I have already unsubscribed from my VPS server with Speedy Trading Servers, so I can no longer ping addresses from my VPS.

However, a valid address owned by CQG and located in Chicago (Naperville, IL) that does respond to pings is:

208.48.16.214

I currently ping this 208... ip address regularly from my NC machine and get response times between 40 ms - 50 ms on average. If I ever try a VPS located in downtown Chicago again, I will be sure to ping this address from the VPS to see what kind of turnaround times I get for a CQG server located in Chicago when I ping it from my VPS. (The turnaround times between this 208... ip address and my VPS co-located in Chicago should have been around 1-3 ms, while the turnaround times between this 208... ip address and my local North Carolina machine average between 40 ms - 50 ms.)

Tell me this, even though the CQG order routing servers are located in Chicago, without telling my the specific route involved, are you saying that NQ orders executed through the CQG order routing servers are routed locally in Chicago directly to the CME exchange, without being routed out of the Chicago area before being excecuted. Or are these orders through the CQG order routing servers somehow routed out of Chicago on their trip between my NT8 desktop client and the CME exchange. If all routing between any local machine running NT8 and the CQG order routing servers goes directly between Chicago and the local machine with no other hops outside of Chicago, then it is highly likely that fills from a local VPS in Chicago should always have preceded fills from my machine in North Caroline. But, if the route between any local machine and the CQG order routing servers in Chicago involves travel to other cities/regions-of-the-country, then it is understandable how the fills from my VPS could have happened after the fills from my North Carolina machine.

So, do orders from an NT8 desktop client connect directly and only to Chicago when being sent between the NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers in Chicago, or are there other regions/cities in the US that are on the route between any CQG order routing server and a local NT8 desktop client?

[flonkle]

Hi LuisH,

The route between a local machine running an NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers in Chicago is what is important. If you guys connect a local NT8 desktop client directly to the Chicago-based CQG order routing servers with no detours in between, then a VPS co-located in Chicago running an NT8 strategy will get its market orders filled in the NQ market before a machine in North Carolina running that same automated NT8 strategy gets its market orders filled in the NQ market.

However, you guys seem to be unwilling to tell me if the route between a machine running an NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers is direct between the CQG order routing servers and the NT8 desktop client, or if there are detours to other cities/regions/etc between the NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers.

For example, if you always route the orders from the local NT8 desktop client through Kansas City before they reach the CQG order routing servers, then a VPS co-located in Chicago is not ideal. It will have its orders first routed out to Kansas City and then back to the CQG order routing servers in Chicago each time it submits an order to be executed. If something like this is happening, then the fact that both the co-located VPS and the CQG order routing servers are located in Chicago is fairly irrelevant.

So, I ask you again, is the route between an NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers direct between the NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers, or are there detours to other cities/regions/etc. on the route between a local NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers it ultimately connects to in Chicago?

[NinjaTrader_LuisH]

Hello flonkle

Routed to the CQG routing server, as far as NinjaTrader brokerage accounts are concerned.

I just realized you mentioned you have an AMP account. It would be worth consulting with AMP Support to inquire how their orders are routed.


Thanks!

[flonkle]

Just thought I would follow-up for anyone following along...

I spoke to Jack at CQG (phone number for CQG customer support: 1-800-525-1085). He assured me that the connections between an NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers for AMP customers are direct and all located in Chicago. All AMP-related servers associated with CQG are hosted in Chicago; there are no other detours in the connection between an NT8 desktop client and the CQG order routing servers for AMP that would make the route for this connection go to/through some other city/region other than directly from the NT8 desktop client to Chicago and vice-versa. He told me that most brokerages trading on the CME through CQG also have all of their servers located in Chicago. He said that once an NT8 client connects to CQG, its orders are first sent to risk-assessment servers operated by the brokerage (e.g., to make sure you have enough money in your account to make the trade you are trying to execute). He said that when trading through the CME, most all brokerage risk-assessment servers associated with CQG are located in Chicago. Orders that pass risk-asessment checks are then sent to the CME's trade-matching servers, etc. So, it seems that both AMP and Ninjatrader Brokerage house their CQG order routing servers, risk-assessment servers, etc. all in Chicago.

FWIW, the NT8 automated strategy that I was running used calls to OnMarketData() on multiple instruments (CPU intensive), so it looks like the delay I was seeing with fills generated by the NT8 strategy running on my VPS that was co-located in Chicago were probably processing delays due to the weaker processing power of the VPS I was renting. (I think I was renting a VPS with access to only a single Xeon core and maybe 1.5 GB of RAM... so, it could have possibly been a memory issue, as well. I dunno...)

It would only have taken a processing delay of slightly more than 40 ms - 50 ms on the VPS I was renting to make the orders from my VPS arrive at the CME later than the orders from my North Carolina machine did.

Lesson: if you're running a processing-intensive automated strategy on NT8 on a VPS, make sure to get a VPS package with enough processing power and/or memory to handle the job.

[QuantVPS]

Hello,

I recently rented a VPS from Speedy Trading Servers located in downtonwn Chicago. I ran a strategy on NT8 on their VPS and ran the same strategy on NT8 on my local machine in North Carolina. I sent automated entries through this strategy from both the VPS and from my local machine in NC to the CME and executed trades in the NQ futures market. (I use a legacy CQG live data feed through my legacy Ninjatrader account with AMP futures. However, these CQG servers seem to be close to the same as the current Continuum live data feed servers from CQG.)

What is odd is that the orders from my local machine in NC consistently got filled in the NQ market before the orders executed on my VPS located in Chicago did. (I checked my fills against a single tick chart to figure this out.)

Thanks in advance for your help with this question.

We would love to look further into the latency issue that you are having. It could be due to a variety of factors.

Reach out to our 24/7 support team for a free trial to show you improved execution >>> www.QuantVPS.com