by c9tec | Nov 21, 2016 | News, Product Updates
New performance alerts now give C9 Trader users insight into factors that may affect their ability to use the platform. These notifications will indicate a user’s network conditions such as internet connectivity and UDP connectivity.
Internet Connectivity
The internet connectivity notification will alert users when internet connectivity conditions fall below an optimal range to support performance for the Cloud9. A yellow icon in the top right corner of the C9 Trader indicates a network warning, triggered when internet availability is between 60-80%. A red icon indicates a network error, when availability is between 0-60%.
UDP Connectivity
When the user logs in, the client will initiate a UDP (User Datagram Protocol) loopback test to verify the connectivity to the Cloud9 STUN servers. If the UDP loopback test fails, an error will be indicated on the login screen. In the event of any failure, the test will continue to try and establish a connection.
To learn more about the Cloud9 application, watch this quick overview.
by c9tec | Nov 2, 2016 | News, Product Updates
Voice recording and storage are essential for regulatory compliance in the financial services industry. Understanding the various regulations, such as MiFID II, as well as internal processes each firm is subject to, Cloud9 offers a number of options for firms to customize their experience and securely store their call recordings.
Firms can choose from a solution hosted in our cloud environment or integrate Cloud9 with their on-premise recording vendors.
Cloud9 Hosted Recording
Cloud9 Portal
– Access recordings at any time via the Recording tab in the Cloud9 Customer Portal.
– Recordings are protected with triple encryption, keeping them secure in transit as well as at rest on the Amazon Web Services server where they are stored.
– Conforms to major regulatory compliance initiatives, including the retention and recording obligations of MiFID II:
- Recording: All call activity from the C9 Trader is recorded and can be retained for an indefinite amount of time and can be transcribed so firms can uncover name, numbers, quantity of financial instruments bought or sold, and prices.
- Call Metadata: Cloud9 captures call data on all calls including date and time of call, call duration, the name of the firms engaged on a call, and the names of individuals on a call.
- Record Keeping and Access: Firms can access recording and call level detail via the Cloud9 Customer Portal. Call Records can be maintained for five years or more as mandated by regulatory requirements.
Global Relay Integration
– Cloud9 currently supports integration with Global Relay for recording and archiving which can be managed from the Cloud9 Customer Portal. Customers looking to integrate their own recording and archiving solution, see information on Vendor Integration below.
– Sends the recording files and information to Global Relay via SMTP protocol.
– Recordings are available for download the same day.
Cloud9 Nightly Download and Playback
– Daily call recordings can be downloaded nightly and archived on a firm’s own storage network. A downloader utility must be installed on the customer’s file server.
– Results of nightly download are a single day’s call records and associated voice recording files placed in a compressed (zip) folder.
– Administrators can also install the Cloud9 Playback tool on their desktop to decrypt and play back voice recordings.
Customer Hosted Recording
For all customer hosted recording options, Cloud9 can integrate with customer’s existing, on-premise systems for voice recording and analytics to deliver full call records and recordings. The following features are available with this option:
– Cloud9 captures rich metadata that includes calling party, counterparty, the names of the individuals on the call, call start, call end, duration, and reference to call recording file name.
– On-premise option supports full compliance with individual firm’s security protocols.
-Supports storage of data in country of origin, maintaining data sovereignty.
-Call records are delivered immediately to firm for playback and review.
– Integration with Alarm Monitoring sends error log messages to notify firm of any issues with the recording process and the delivery of call records.
To learn more about the features of Cloud9, watch this quick overview.
by c9tec | Oct 3, 2016 | News, Product Updates
Extend Cloud9 to improve your workflow and enhance compliance with our Cloud9 Connect services. Cloud9 Connect is a series of services that will enable firms to use RESTful APIs to connect with third party systems of their choosing or a best-of-breed set of vendors. The benefit of this service is that it will provide our customers with streamlined processes and deeper insight into their trading operations, including the integration of key compliance functions like call recording, surveillance, and trade reconstruction as well as market data.
Key areas that Cloud9 Connect will help facilitate integrations include:
Recording and Storage
Cloud9 already has dynamic recording capabilities, complete with secure recording of all call events and logs including the identity of the calling party, counterparty, call start and duration, and file name. In addition, we record events by user ID, not trading position, so calls can be tracked on a global basis. Currently, these files are stored Cloud9’s encrypted cloud environment, however some firms require this information to be kept on premise and we will make APIs available both for custom and best-of-breed vendor integration.
Disaster Recovery and Backup
Cloud9 data and recordings are already backed up to the Amazon Web Services Cloud, however many firms require their solutions to address IT requirements for backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. With Cloud9, you can use our REST API to backup and restore your data with whatever service your firm chooses. Benefits include elimination of data loss, redundant data in the event of a disaster, and rapid recovery of your data.
Compliance and Trade Reconstruction
With Cloud9’s analytics API, call event metadata and voice recording data can now be transmitted in a real-time, reliable, and secure format within a firm’s own environment. Since Cloud9 already collects detailed call information, this data can be passed directly to a firm’s own analytics application or storage method, kept locally and managed by the customer.
Surveillance capabilities have become a new area of interest in the financial services community, as they were not possible with traditional telephony platforms. Cloud9 can establish APIs to third party systems that support biometrics, using voice properties to identify individuals and automatically monitor for compliance audits.
We will be able to establish real-time surveillance, in which any voice activity generates metadata and a file with details like call start and duration, user ID, counterparty ID, and connection ID. This information can be uploaded securely to the Cloud9 Portal for archiving and analytics or be redirected to a third-party surveillance system.
Voice Analytics
Transcription is becoming a popular topic for financial firms with the advent and improvement of voice-to-text technology. Cloud9 will be able to interface with applications that provide the most accurate voice-to-text transcription technology that will enable firms to search for keywords on calls. In addition, we will also introduce the capability to send out alerts based on certain keywords in transcriptions. Cloud9 also features speaker separation, so that you can know who says what in a call – however you can integrate with other solutions that include emotion detection, biometrics, and more.
Learn more about the capabilities of the C9 Trader here.
by c9tec | Sep 20, 2016 | News, Product Updates
Cloud9 is now offering regional hosting for our Gateway service in Houston and London, in addition to existing hosted Gateway offerings in New York, Chicago, and Singapore. In addition to the ability to get rid of your legacy telephony equipment and still connect with all of your counterparties, regional hosting will also help you lower your private line costs that connect to counterparties in those regions.
The Cloud9 Gateway service provides system interoperability between existing trader voice circuits and the Cloud9 community by converting traditional telephony lines to WebRTC protocol. Existing Cloud9 users can seamlessly connect with trading firms not yet established on Cloud9 platform and maintain their functionality for both shout-downs and ring downs.
One of our customers, Eclipse International, recently spoke about how the Gateway allowed them to eliminate hardware, save money, and stay connected with their key counterparties.
“We love using Cloud9, and the Gateway allows us to use it exclusively to connect with our most important clients,” says Jesse DiPlacido, Senior OTC Broker at Eclipse. “As much as we appreciate the Gateway, we can’t wait for the day when we don’t use it – because that means all of our counterparties are on Cloud9.”
If you’re interested in bringing the Gateway to your firm, please contact us.
Want to learn more about how Cloud9 is transforming trader voice communications? Check out this quick overview.
by c9tec | Aug 11, 2016 | Product Updates
Our highest priority at Cloud9 is providing traders and brokers with a reliable technology that addresses the needs of their unique communication environment. Financial professionals need a solution that always works and that cuts through the noise of a trading floor to ensure they are getting the most accurate information.
Behind the scenes, our Cloud9 engineers are constantly improving our audio capabilities and data transmission capabilities, so traders never have to worry about performance or being heard by their counterparties. Enhancements to our WebRTC code base in the areas of sound quality, data transmission speed and quality, and audio perception continue to solidify Cloud9 as a high-performance, cloud-based platform for traders.
Deals on a trading floor happen fast, so interruptions and poor sound quality can significantly disrupt a business deal.
Behind the scenes, our engineers have built a number of solutions into the C9 Trader platform to reduce latency, or the amount of time it takes from sound to get from one point to another, sharpen audio, account for variable network coverage, and make it easier for users to distinguish calls from multiple counterparties.
Sound Quality Updates
Along with recent updates to the sound quality capabilities of WebRTC, we’ve added our own audio processing to the platform, improving the intelligibility of speech and making significant advancements in noise reduction.
With our dynamic filtering capability, we are able to transmit voice at a better quality by sharpening it and helping voice cut through a noisy environment. When receiving a call, this allows users to clearly hear their counterparties over background room noise when talking to single as well as multiple connections.
Improved Transmission Speed and Quality
Transmission updates can help your team account for the unexpected: poor internet connections, low bandwidth, and other network connectivity issues specific to your internet service. We’ve added a number of updates to improve latency across geographic regions, as well as to address variable internet bandwith and mobility use scenarios.
Using the same process, we have been able to optimize Group Broadcast button communication. With this update traders are able to communicate to multiple counterparties with less chance of delay caused by a network overload.
Innovative Audio Perception
Making sure traders can distinguish between counterparties when they are speaking is key to improving productivity. With our audio spatiality feature, traders are able to associate buttons on their C9 Trader with a physical speaker position, either left, center, or right. For example, when a counterparty with a button on the left side of the application speaks, their voice will be transmitted through the left speaker. By moving buttons around their screen, traders can easily customize which counterparties will be associated with each speaker.
Cloud9 has also implemented enhanced encryption on all voice connections, which is key for regulatory compliance in top financial institutions. For comparison, the WebRTC standard is 128 bit encryption, meaning that the audio transmitted through Cloud9 is exceptionally secure.
by c9tec | Aug 11, 2016 | Product Updates
Cloud9 has recently introduced customer reporting for Cloud9 administrators. These productivity and connection reports will ensure that admins have full oversight of the day-to-day activities of traders and that firms are connected to the right counterparties.
Firm Button Report
As a firm administrator, you need to make sure you have constant oversight of your users connections, and ensure that they have proper access to the right counterparties. Cloud9 now offers visbility into each user’s connections in the form of a Connectivity report, as seen in the example below:
User Oversight
Along with our Firm Button report, our Cloud9 Usage report enables you to review trends in user activity by day, week and month. You can also export the data to Excel for closer review.
To view these features, log in to your C9 Trader administrative portal.
