Wexford Capital LLC, Connecticut
There’s no hedging on the importance of network performance
“Reduce risk. Increase reward.” It’s the first commandment for hedge fund companies and the key to performance—the critical factor in today’s financial environment and how any hedge fund company is judged.
But achieving outstanding performance is no easy task in light of growing pressure to strengthen yields while overcoming challenging market conditions and increasing regulation. That’s where the first commandment comes in for Joseph Curran, VP and Chief Technology Officer at Wexford Capital LLC, headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Reduce Risk.
Curran always has performance on his mind. With more than
$5.5 billion of assets under its management, Wexford Capital cannot afford to take risks with its IT infrastructure.
“We’re comprised of a diverse base of users—both highly technical staff and fairly demanding external investors, clients, prime brokers, and other business clients,” says Curran. “We process vast amounts of time-critical applications, transactions, and other information crucial to the overall success of our firm and clients.”
But handling that amount of data is filled with risk. Interrupted service or lost data could be catastrophic in an industry where, perhaps more than any other, time equals money.
Increase Reward.
In order to gain a competitive edge, Curran is always exploring new processes and applications. It’s his goal to mitigate risk while simultaneously making his systems more efficient and better able to respond to customers’ wants and needs.
In order to do both, Wexford built an off-site data center to act as a virtual office in the case of interrupted network service. It also replicates mail archiving, journaling, and every transaction that takes place within the company.
“At Wexford, we feel that the key to winning is aligning the technology department with our business objectives,” says Curran. “Technology is a powerful tool that has leveled the playing field. Our focus is to center programs on sound, customer-focused IT investments that act as technology enablers.”
To meet the broadband requirements for this application, Curran turned to Fibertech for dark fiber connectivity between its headquarters location and data center facility. “Dark fiber provided us with unlimited bandwidth to connect our locations for the cost of about a T3 connection—a no-brainer as far as an operational expense,” says Curran. “With this capacity, we can now treat a resource 50 miles away as if it was in the next rack over. We don’t worry about quality of service, WAN compression, or optimization—our network is always on.”
Performance. How any company is judged.
Curran believes Web technology and security applications will continue to evolve and improve the way Wexford conducts its business. More and more, customers want instant access—anytime, anywhere—to critical information, and he believes Wexford can meet these requirements.
With the outstanding performance that Fibertech’s network delivers to Wexford Capital, you might say that the future-proof is in the pudding.
"Thanks to Fibertech, we’ve future-proofed our business and put a system in place to maximize the benefits of our dark fiber network,” says Curran. “Its high-performance, high-availability architecture provides the necessary bandwidth to support our growth."
Joseph Curran, VP And Chief Technology Officer at Wexford Capital LLC