Replicaton tool

FIX Antenna Replication tool (RT) is a utility for efficient replication of FIX logs across networked computers. It is typically used for FIX session recovery on a backup FIX engine. It is deployed on the primary FIX engine (server - publisher) and backup destination(s) (subscriber- client). RT uses a custom transfer protocol to synchronize FIX logs between the primary and backups hosts in real time. It can be started at any time to resynchronize primary and backup FIX log files. It is highly optimized for high throughput to transfer data from multiple log files and to efficiently utilize bandwidth. RT comes with an Admin interface to operate and monitor the state of replication process.

Features

Feature	Description
Real-time data synchronization	Log replicator tool monitors changes in FIX session log files/directories and replicates data to the backup node. Polling interval is specified with milliseconds precision.
Usage as a Disaster Recovery tool	If the primary FIX engine crashes, the backup FIX engine will recover the sessions from the replicated logs to continue processing FIX messages without data loss.
Working modes	Work in one of three modes: Client-server mode (subscriber and publisher are located on discrete computers) Administrative Tool mode (connect to subscriber and control replication process) Standalone mode (publisher and subscriber are located on the same computer) The user can configure the needed mode for work.
Usage as a FIX logs archive	The Replication tool may be useful in configuring FIX logs archives.
Multiple FIX logs storage	It uses a pattern/mask to select files to be replicated. It also supports recursive access to subdirectories.
Multiple replication targets	It can also transfer logs to multiple hosts to defined directories.
Storage configuration	Publisher configuration: Publishers can look for logs only in the root folder or in all subfolders recursively and add them to the monitor list Publishers can look for several chosen sub-folders in a folder Subscriber configuration: Subscribers can accept any logs in folders from the publisher or in all subfolders recursively Subscribers can accept from publisher several chosen logs in a folder
Security	Support Client's authentication with passwords
Supported products	FIX Engines FIXEdge C++/Java
Operating system	Windows Linux RHEL/CentOS 7 Linux RHEL/CentOS 8 Support for other platforms is available on demand

Main mode diagrams

There are two most commonly used Replication tool modes.

1. Disaster recovery mode

In this case, the Replication Tool is used to synchronize the FIX logs between different datacenters to increase the fault tolerance of the system. This usage is represented in the following diagram.

Replication Tool _normal Flow

The FIXAntenna-based application and Replication Tool are deployed on two nodes in the different datacenters. At any given time, one of them has the main role and handles all the traffic (Node 1 on the diagram) while another is a backup (Node 2 on the diagram). Node 1 runs the FIXAntenna-based application and Replication Tool Server.

Node 2 runs Replication Tool Client. It connects to the server and requests the last known messages from Node 2. Replication Tool Server monitors the log files and sends the messages to Replication Tool Client. When Replication Tool Client receives messages from Replication Tool Server, it writes them to the files in the FIXAntenna-based application.

If the primary Data Center goes offline, support personnel switches Node 2 in the Disaster recovery site to the role of the main mode, stop Replication Tool Client and start the FIXAntenna-based application and Replication Tool Server. The FIXAntenna-based application sees the logs written earlier by the Replication Tool Client and uses them to recover the FIX sessions.

The clients need to reconnect and continue their FIX sessions. Message replication between the datacenters is not synchronous, so some client messages may be lost. Recovery of them is handled via the FIX protocol retransmission starting from the sequence number of the last processed (replicated) message.

Replication Tool _step 1

When the primary site becomes available , Node 1 goes back online in backup mode. It needs to get the messages that were received/sent and handled by Node 2. Replication Tool Client connects to Node 2 and requests the messages. First, it receives the messages received and sent before Node 1 started; then, it receives new messages as they are received or sent by the FIXAntenna-based application on Node 2.

2. Multiple FIX logs replication

Replication tool allows configuration of multiple FIX log storage in distinct computers.

Several instances of Replication tool subscriber can be configured on distinct computers. Replication tool subscribers can batch FIX logs from Replication tool publisher.

Replication Tool _configuration

Administration

Admintool is used for Replication tool administration. Major administration functions are:

Show the list of all folders with their state and message count
Stop folder usage gracefully
Renew stopped folder usage
Check folder state (stopped or replicated)
Stop folder usage immediately
Stop folder usage immediately even if gracefully stop was activated

Replication tool user guide