Iress’s ASX colocation plan changes the route to market data and execution

Iress’s agreement to join the ASX Australian Liquidity Centre puts the infrastructure behind its trading and market-data services closer to the exchange and other counterparties. Announced on 24 September, the arrangement is a migration project: Iress expects to complete its move in the second half of 2027.[1]

For brokers, the proposed move can simplify connections among the software provider, market infrastructure and trading counterparties. Iress expects better platform performance and resilience. Each customer’s routing and migration arrangements will determine the resulting service.[1]

ASX operates its main trading and post-trade systems at the Sydney facility. Its colocation service connects organisations through physical cross-connects and supplies identical-length links to ASX’s trading platform regardless of cabinet location. Customers can also use the same time signal as the exchange systems. These are specific infrastructure services; cabinet proximity alone does not determine the speed of an entire broker workflow.[2]

A broker’s order passes through instruction handling, risk controls, the trading application and venue connectivity. Colocation changes the hosting and network portion of that route. Measuring each stage makes it possible to identify where latency improves and where other processing still dominates.

The ALC is carrier-neutral, allowing customers to choose external connectivity providers or ASX Net. It also provides onsite technical support and remote assistance with equipment. That gives a broker different ways to reach the colocated service and maintain its connection; the choice still needs to match the broker’s wider network and recovery arrangements.[2]

A useful migration assessment records the routes being moved, compares performance before and after, and tests the recovery path. Operations teams need both normal-operation measurements and evidence that the fallback works when an application or connection fails.

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