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Thursday, July 7, 2016

UTP Vendor Alert #2016 - 12
User Acceptance Testing to begin Saturday July 9, 2016

Markets Impacted:

Products Impacted:

Contact Information:

What you need to know:

  • As announced in UTP Vendor Alert 2016-01, the Unlisted Trading Privileges (UTP) Operating Committee, comprised of all exchange participants and FINRA, announced its approval of the migration plan for the Securities Information Processor (SIP) to Nasdaq’s INET technology for the UTP data services.
  • UPDATE:
    • The new INET SIP Platform started the User Acceptance Test (UAT) Phase of the migration on June 24, 2016.
    • Saturday, July 9, 2016, will be the first of several Saturday UATs for the exchanges to begin testing their connectivity and functionality with the new INET SIP.
    • Beginning Monday, July 11, 2016 the SIP will disseminate nightly test files of the new INET Binary formats. The SIP will create sample messages in the new formats to be broadcast on weeknights from 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM over the INET Binary Multicast IPs.
    • In order to provide the data recipients with additional information on the testing plans please refer to the INET SIP Acceptance Test Plan
  • Specification / Multicast IP Updates:
    • The INET SIP has made modifications to the rerequest source IPs for the new INET Binary services. Please refer to the UDP/IP Addresses link on UTP Plan website.
    • Revised versions of the Binary Specifications have been posted to the Technical Specifications page. Please refer to the revision history section for details of the edits.
  • The migration is on schedule to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016. The production-ready environment is planned to launch October 10, 2016.

Overview:

The UTP Operating Committee (UTPOC) has contracted with Nasdaq to serve as the SIP. Nasdaq will migrate the legacy SIP technology to INET technology for the UTP data services. Nasdaq plans to launch the new INET technology for the SIP in the fourth quarter of 2016. The production-ready environment is scheduled for October 10, 2016.

How is the Migration Project Progressing?

As documented in the Migration Presentation the production ready environment is scheduled for launch October 10, 2016. The following table provides you a status of the phases completed to date and what remains.

Event Schedule Dates
Requirements analysis Completed: September 2015 - October 2015
Internal Binary design and preliminary build Completed: June 2016
Internal SIP development testing Completed: Testing continues Select weekends April 2016 – June 2016
Flat file and nightly test file availability Completed: Test file available May 2016 till production launch
Testing Facility (NTF) available for exchange participants and NTF connected clients Completed: Available May 25, 2016 through production launch and post launch
User Acceptance Testing (UATs) Beginning July 9, 2016: Select weekends July 2016 – October 2016
Comparison of existing services and New UTP Data Services (binary) (BETA versions) Beginning Monday, July 11, 2016: July 2016 - August 2016
Parallel Data Dissemination of existing services and New UTP Data Services (binary) (BETA versions) Scheduled to begin: August 2016 – till production launch
Production Launch* Scheduled: October 10, 2016

* The UTPOC and the SIP will work closely with the industry to ensure readiness and participation in the testing and have designed flexibility within the migration plan to accommodate industry or regulatory requests for extension of BETA testing.

What are the direct Data Feed Recipients testing opportunities?

As part of the early testing opportunities the SIP indicated that a test file would be created and made available for direct Data Feed Recipients. The file is intended for format testing only and will not be representative of production data.

This flat file is now available for Data Feed Recipients to download and begin to test the new formats. Please be advised that this file is a PCAP file and would need something like “Wireshark” or similar to open and process.

In addition to the flat file, the following testing opportunities are scheduled to be available for direct Data Feed Recipients:

Type of Testing Scheduled Dates Description
Saturday User Acceptance Test (UAT) Saturday UATs:
  • July 9th and 23rd
  • August 6th and 20th
  • September 10th and 24th
  • October 8th (Confidence Test)
 UTP participants will be invited to enter data to test the new functionality. As it is generated, the UTP SIP will disseminate the new test data via the “UTP Data Services (binary)”. Advance registration is requested for the UATs.
Nightly Test Replay July 11, 2016 through go-live Nightly test replays of the new UTP Data Services (binary) is available on the production multicast groups on weeknights from 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM
BETA Parallel Testing July 2016 through September 2016 Direct Data Feed Recipients, which have configured and connected to the new IP Multicast Groups, will have the opportunity to receive BETA Versions of the new UTP Data Services (binary). Details on the three step BETA test process are shown below.
*Legacy SIP UTP Data Feeds remain the Production data services that data recipients must use for regulatory obligations.
Production Launch Production Ready Environment Scheduled for Monday, October 10, 2016 Production implementation of the new data services. This will be implemented as a “Hot Cut” release, vendors must be prepared to process the new binary data feeds or risk the loss of data.
*Upon launch of the new UTP Data Services (binary), Data Feed Recipients must use the binary feeds for regulatory obligations.

Who should I contact for additional information?