vps hosting?

[jimmo]

Any suggerstions on using a vps host to run an auto trader? Any things to look for or avoid in a vps host? Also, will I run into a roadblock if my auto trader is licensed?

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

jimmo, welcome to our forums! Hopefully fellow members can share their VPS feedback here with you - for the licensing question it would be best to contact the developer / vendor of your Autotrader software.

[daven]

Autotrade on Amazon EC2

I've been running three separate autotrade strategies on Amazon EC2. It works just fine, but here is the main issue I have already hit. Each time you fire up an instance to launch your trading software, that instance has a new machine id. Depending on whether you are using any third-party indicators in your trading software, they will have to be relicensed by the vendor everytime you try to run on a new machine, (which is everytime you start a new instance on the virtual server). I'm sure there must be a way around this, but I don't know what it might be.
DaveN

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

DaveN, did you check into the logs of your NinjaTrader EC2 installation? I guess there are issues identifying the CPU under the hood there...

[paodo]

Hello,
I am looking for an automated trading software to run on Amazon EC2 (windows 2003 server) via Interactive Brokers. Is Amazon EC2 supported by Ninja Trader?

The requirement is also a complete automated start, i.e. launching Ninja automatically for immediate automated trading.

Is this possible?

Thank you

[NinjaTrader_RyanM1]

Hello Paodo,

Welcome to the NinjaTrader forums!

Unfortunately you can't start an automated strategy right from the start. You will have to enable from the control center once the platform has started. Please see here for additional help on running a NinjaScript strategy.

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/running_ninjascript_strategies.htm

[paodo]

Thank you very much for your very quick reply.

Regarding the Amazon EC2 : is it supported?

I would need to run around 80 automated strategies, based on 8 different underlings. Across how many high CPU instance would that have to be split?
I am running into trouble with my current custom made ATS on some very liquid underlyings (like mini S&P) when the number of ticks is sometimes too high for my program to handle (especially around the opening bell).

I have heard good reviews about Ninja trader and its performance, so I would like to analyze the impact on a migration to this platform (which has to run on Amazon EC2).

Thank you!

[NinjaTrader_RyanM1]

NinjaTrader can be run on Windows operating systems, but we don't offer additional support for windows emulators or computing services like Amazon EC2. Any analysis on requirements with this type of setup must be done independently.

The license agreement with NinjaTrader is for only one instance of NinjaTrader at a time. For each instance you plan to run at the same time requires a separate license.

[paodo]

No specific support is unfortunate... Is Ninja as efficient on Windows Server 2003 as on Windows XP? Do you have customers using that setup without problem?

The multiple licences is not an issue. What would be is a lack of performance, which would mean to launch for example 20 instances for the 8 underlyings strategies.

The only performance reference on Amazon EC2 and Ninja I found was this:

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=11432&highlight=amazon&page=3

Any additional information you could provide me on Ninja's performance on virtualized servers, windows server would be helpful.

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

People use it on both without issues. You can use whichever. It will perform equally well on both.

Unfortunately there isn't any additional information we can provide. There are many people who do use virtual servers, but we would not be able to speak to their experiences.

[cedricf]

At the moment I am looking for a VPS host. Can anyone of you recommend one? I already checked IX Webhosting and currently I would choose them? Anyone who is already using IX webhosting. I would really appreciate some guidance.

[crimsonite]

I'm going to try it out on EC2 Extra large cluster... will report back how it goes

[cunparis]

I'm going to try it out on EC2 Extra large cluster... will report back how it goes

How did it go?

I too am interested in this and I'd like to know how much these providers charge? is there a flat monthly rate or is it by CPU and/or bandwidth?

[nikolaalx]

I am not exactly an expert here, but isn't the ping and connectivity/proximity to the datacenter of the broker/stock exchange of utmost importance (rather than having a dynamically scallable server)?

shortening the lag with 10ms in ping, could reduce a huge amount of slippage ...and turn directly into profits.

I myself am considering two separate servers. One for backtesting and one for trading. The trading server will have the primary goal to have minimum slippage (1ms ping to the broker max) and the one for backtesting will have raw power.

Just my opinion.