Last week, we explored how our collaboration with TIBCO™ has allowed us to create faster financial software development, with a turn-around time that’s at least 50% quicker.
As we explained, this is down to several key factors, including that TIBCO™ has turned complex code into components that can be easily moved around to create an event flow. These components also include streaming adapters, which let you access data from a multitude of sources, normalise it into your system, and use it to succeed in your process.
But let’s start with the question many people ask us:
What Are TIBCO™Streaming Adapters?
A streaming adapter is a piece of software that can convert data to and from a source. In other words, it’s a program that:
- receives data from a source and converts it to your system’s specifications; or
- which sends data from your system to another with the system’s specifications.
When it comes to TIBCO™ Streaming Adapters, these can convert data in three specific ways:
- In real-time for example from financial markets, an IoT (Internet-of-Things) device, news streams, Twitter, or push notification system;
- From external sources like CSV files, databases, or emails; or
- From already-processed StreamBase tuples into another format, like an XML file, email, web api calls, specific protocol messages (Json, FIX, etc.).
How Can Financial Streaming Adapters Save On Coding Time?
When you send an email, you access your preferred software, input the email of the receiver, type your text, and press ‘Send’. The probability is that, like most users, you don’t think much about what’s going on behind the scenes, and you certainly don’t spend hours coding a program that can send and receive emails.
The same type of experience is being offered to you through these financial streaming adapters, which are basically a set of instructions that tell your workflow where you’d like your software to collect or extract data from and how you’d like that data to be processed.
And the possibilities with TIBCO™ Streaming Adapters are absolutely endless. These include:
- FIX, which would be already configured for the main Bank or provider protocols;
- JDBC for database and Apache Cassandra;
- Bloomberg Server and Tradebook;
- Web and WebSocket for any web connectivity;
- Apache Kafka open-source software;
- LDAP;
- POP3 and SMTP for emails; and
- Twitter.
The full list of potential embedded adapters is a long one which we urge you to check out, particularly as they go beyond the obvious. In fact, these financial streaming adapters can also allow you to:
- Run scripts in Python and R;
- RunDLL in .NET and Java codes;
- Read files and directly produce data streams; and
- Create files directly from said data streams.
Saving You Time At Every Step
Using these adapters obviously saves developers time while they create your fully customisable financial software solution.
But what happens if you need an adapter that isn’t listed?
Well, it is possible to create a custom JAVA embedded adapter from the TIBCO™ Java Classes libraries, which means that even creating an adapter that extends the capabilities of these software solutions takes less time than coding it from scratch!
Are You Ready to Take Your Investment Strategy to the Next Level?
So, where does this leave you, as the financial manager of an SME?
This sort of technology gives you access to data that is compiled from dozens of sources in real-time. Data that is normalised, analysed, and collected just how you need it to.
Imagine it: real-time data from world markets, international exchanges, and institutions like Bloomberg transformed into processes you can use to inform your actions or even to create your own trading idea automation set-up.
Yes, this can be as revolutionary as it sounds, so join us next week as we explore a number of further benefits of our event stream processing framework.