Trading desks today face the combined challenge of how to process massive amounts of market data, how to connect and route their orders to the appropriate venues and how to make best use of software, hardware and network connectivity to do it all in a timely manner. The days when a small reduction in latency could result in a big gain in revenues are gone. Nowadays, low latency is a pre-requisite to do business and we have to look beyond pure speed if we aim at achieving a competitive edge.