"Software Development is the Art of Making Everything Look the Same - Discuss"
A software developer used to be defined as the sort of person who couldn't tell the difference between a terminal and a paper tape reader. As far as he or she was concerned, they both delivered the same stream of data, and any differences in their physical manifestation were irrelevant. Peripherals have moved on, but the principle remains the same. If A looks like B and you can deal with A, then you can also deal with B.
You can apply the same principle to more complex things like operating systems. The idea of Java is that it didn't matter what hardware or operating system your application is hosted on - as long as there's a Java Virtual Machine on your host machine, you can run your application with no changes whatsoever. The JVM does the job of making everything underneath look the same.
At JPA, we've gone slightly higher up the food chain, and developed an object model that is not only operating system neutral, but market data system neutral. We call this the OnePlatform programme. What this means is that most of our PlatformOne™ applications and feed handlers will run as native applications and feed handlers within standard market data systems such as MTRS, Triarch and RMDS.
Wny do we do this? Simple economics. There are a lot of MTRS, Triarch and RMDS systems out there.
The Hamburger Model
So how's it done? Well, most market data applications are structured rather like a hamburger. The interesting stuff, the "meat" is in the middle, surrounded on the top and bottom by the API and run-time (that rather unappetising bun that's mainly there just to hold the meat in place).
The PlatformOne™ model is very similar, except that the bun now represents the PlatformOne™ API.
Now here's the clever bit. If we've got an application that we've built for PlatformOne™, we can turn it into a native application for a standard market data system by shrinking the PlatformOne™ API into a thin layer between the application code and the market data system. If it's not stretching the analogy too far, we end up with some kind of triple cheeseburger:
OK, maybe it was stretching the analogy a bit too far. And anyway, I haven't eaten a hamburger in years ...
Availability
We are extending the OnePlatform programme on a regular basis. So if you're interested in a particular application or feed handler from the PlatformOne™ product set, but would like to run it native within your market data system, e-mail us to discuss the feasibility of doing this.