Has anyone co-located @ Genesis

Quote from Bluegar3:

if so... is this easy to do? I'd appreicate it is anyone would tell me anything regarding this process.

Thanks

From this thread:
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1890243#post1890243

Though let me add in Genesis's defense, that no API's documentation is errorless or without holes. But it is the amount and degree of errors that makes the difference.

If you want to use the API good luck! The trader next to me had worked for large hedgefunds writing blackboxes. He said Laser API was worst he had used. The documentation for the API is incomplete and full of errors. And he tried calling Genesis and Serge hundreds of times to have a question anwered only for them to refuse to answer and say they don't support their own API. His blackbox had originally been written for and was working on another platform, and he just had to rewrite it for Laser. But because he couldn't get the correct coding for the API from Genesis he had to do trial and error and test the code by trading and lose money trading to find out what the correct code was.

He also tried to co-locate several of his servers at Genesis, and that was just an unbelievably horrible experience. Serge was questioned numerous ahead of time about being able to use Linux servers, Serge said that you could and it was no problem. He sent the servers, it took Genesis almost 3 months to actually install the servers after they received them despite repeated calling. And then he discovered Genesis was completely window based so his servers were completely useless. He had to send another server that was window based to interact with the other servers and he had to fly to NY for a couple of days to configure and setup his servers to make them work on Windows. And a week after he got back from his trip he still couldn't connect to his servers. He was told that Genesis had moved the servers after he left, and now his setup which he had just flown there to fix was messed up and not working again. So he had to find and pay a Tech guy in the NYC area to go into Genesis to re-setup his servers again to how he had done it himself when he flew to NY because the tech support at Genesis either refuses to help, or isn't educated enough on the subject to help. Then Genesis told him in order to control his servers he needed to use I believe it was Gotomypc software, which is ridiculously slow and disconnects often. The quotes constantly jammed up and stopped letting his servers see the market, so his orders would go out several minutes after they were supposed to when the quotes would catch up and trigger orders even though the market had moved and changed significantly during those minutes. So his orders were being sent out into what the market was 3 minutes ago, instead of what the market currently was. As you can imagine this would cause major losses. And the orders kept going out wrong because of the incorerect API. He spent a lot of money to set this up and lost even more money to the market trying to get the Laser API to work. When he told them he was done and wanted his servers back, they refused to pack up his servers and ship them back, so someone had to go to NYC and individually carry the servers out of Genesis to the nearest UPS store to ship them back. He then switched to the API of another software and is a whole lot happier.
 
Quote from ProgrammerGuy:

Which API do you think is the best and which one do you currently use?

I don't trade through an API, I use DMA for my trading. I only know what others who were around me in the office that had blackboxes were telling me of their experiences. I have known some who spent over $5k a month to comstock for datafeed and executed through API's of top banks, and said they still had problems with the banks API. However the technical support teams at the banks were very available and knowledgable. The real advice that I can give you that has been passed to me is that you are probably better off getting your data from a provider other than the company's whose API you are executing from. But you can get the data for a lot cheaper than $5k a month. It just depends on how important the quality and latency of the data is to your strategy. If you want top tier wuality then you will spend $5k or more a month. But there are other providers with very good quality data for a lot less, but it will cost a couple of hundred a month for it. Oh, don't try and sound like a bigshot on them phone with the data providers or they will charge you more. Tell them you are just a small retail trader and NOT a professional and they will try to help you out and cut you a deal that is a fraction of the cost they charge other customers.
 
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