SmortCasting Sends Financial Feeds via IP Multicast.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 1998--Today at the '98 SIA Technology Management Conference, Simpact Inc. announced a breakthrough networking technology that allows financial market feeds to be distributed on IP multicast networks.

Traditionally, market feeds have been transmitted via point-to-point leased lines and have been unable to take advantage of low-cost IP multicasting. Simpact's Sm@rtCasting software uses protocol translation to overcome the incompatibility between market feeds and multicasting. Leased lines can be dropped in favor of multicast distribution, while the legacy equipment used to transmit the market feeds remains in place. Sm@rtCasting software runs on Simpact's Sm@rtRouters, a family of intelligent, enterprise-level routers.

"We've designed a simple, economical migration path that allows financial data services to upgrade to IP multicasting without the need to replace any of their existing legacy equipment," said Tom Stockey, Simpact's vice president of sales.

"Multicasting is particularly attractive to financial data providers since they are in the business of sending information from a single source to many receivers. However, because their legacy protocols are not capable of multicasting, they've been locked into using leased lines -- a costly configuration. Now, by simply installing a Sm@rtRouter running our Sm@rtCasting software, a legacy financial feed can be sent over an IP multicast network. It can then be received by any multicast-ready device. Alternatively, it can be received by another Sm@rtRouter which translates the multicast transmission back into a legacy protocol so it can be received by an existing legacy device."

Sm@rtCasting supports most major financial market feeds including Reuters MarketFeed 2000, SWIFT and CHIPS II, Telekurs, and Telerate TIQ. Specialized feeds used by a broad range of stock, bond, and commodity exchanges are also supported including NASDAQ, Chicago Board of Trade, Tokyo Stock Exchange, London Commodities, and more than 40 other exchanges worldwide.

"Simpact has over 20 years experience linking market feeds with TCP/IP LANs," commented Bob Lindstrom, Simpact's vice president of IP products. "It was natural for us to take these connectivity solutions to the next level and offer a simple method for multicasting market feeds. By leveraging our extensive financial protocol library and our fully programmable router, the Sm@rtRouter, we were able to rapidly implement a protocol translation package that connects almost any market feed with an IP multicast network."

A Sm@rtRouter running Sm@rtCasting software acts as "multicast proxy" for legacy devices that are not multicast ready, allowing them to send and receive IP multicasts. The Sm@rtRouter joins multicast groups on behalf of the devices, accepts the multicast data from the IP network, translates it to the appropriate legacy protocol, and passes it to the designated devices. The Sm@rtRouter also translates in the other direction, enabling the devices to send multicast transmissions as well.

Sm@rtCasting supports the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) and Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). Of particular interest to financial institutions is the optionally available Reliable Multicast Transport Protocol (RMTP) which adds end-to-end reliability to IP multicasts.

Sm@rtRouters hosting Sm@rtCasting software can handle up to 24 serial ports of financial market feeds. A 128 port model will be available soon. High-performance, intelligent communications processors manage the serial ports and a powerful CPU performs routing and protocol translation. To ensure high-data throughput and quality of service, Sm@rtRouters employ Wind River Systems' VxWorks, an open, real-time operating system. The integral industry standard router includes a firewall, SNMP support, and a user-friendly GUI for configuration.

About Simpact

Simpact Inc., founded in 1972, designs, manufactures and markets intelligent routers and communications servers that link legacy networks to IP networks. Simpact's headquarters are located at 9210 Sky Park Court, San Diego, Calif., 92123, USA, telephone: [phone]; fax: [phone]; email: [e-mail]; Web: www.simpact.com. Sales offices are located in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Savannah, Ga., Dallas, and Denver, with distributors in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

    CONTACT:  Doug Taylor, 619/565-1865  ext. 1121
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