The platform combines real-time and historical securities trading data into a single database, with sub-second response time on multimillion-record queries, says the company.

Kx Systems has also released the kdb/taq (trade and quote) loader - a module for rapid loading of NYSE TAQ data from CD or other media into the kdb relational database. The new module extends a trader's ability to perform multidimensional time-series analyses of NYSE TAQ data, and can reduce the load time for a month's data from eight hours to 15 minutes, says the vendor.

Using the kdb/tick platform, traders can test models that analyse trading patterns and then run background analyses on real-time feed data, notifying programmes when to execute the trade. A query on a million records can return results in one second, says the company.

According to Arthur Whitney, co-founder and chief technology officer at Kx, the platform eliminates three big constraints on trading analytics. "First, kdb/tick rapidly writes streaming data to disk, removing the prior limitation that only data in memory could be analysed. Second, for historical data analysis, kdb/tick responds to queries in seconds - even when queries involve billions of records - a dramatic improvement compared with the overnight or weekend-long jobs required using other databases. Finally, with kdb/tick firms can integrate their streaming data with their historical data and create a single, current database for more timely analysis."

The solution has been implemented at Credit Lyonnais Securities USA. Stephane Decker, managing director at CL, says kdb/tick was selected because of its "very high-capacity database system with the added abilities to read and write trade information in real-time as well as manage historical data."

Annual fees start at $70,000 for kdb/tick, and $40,000 for kdb/taq. The alternative option is a one-time license fee plus 20% maintenance.