Hosting is one of the key components of a broker’s IT set up, something we outline in today’s article.
Before we dive too deep, it’s helpful to first clarify the subject of today’s article. Hosting refers to the physical computer or machine that the licensed brokerage software will run from.
The majority of forex brokers work with a hosting firm, which actually raises a point we were recently asked about by one of our clients. Why not do this in house vs a cloud hosting solution? Our response is twofold. First, the risks are too high that something could go wrong: a power outage in the office or machine failure. Secondly, the costs required to prevent errors are simply too high: a 24-hour dedicated IT team to watch over the machine, or at a minimum on call support for emergencies. The reason a hosting provider is preferred is that brokers can take advantage of their scale without paying exorbitant fees. Consider some advantages of having access to a massive data center: back up, dedicated support team, security measures, firewalls, and temperature control.
In terms of hosting providers for FX brokers, there are plenty to choose from, however, this is one area where it doesn’t pay to cut corners. All it takes is a few minutes of downtime for a broker to run into serious problems, if this exceeds several hours there could be serious reputation problems the broker will face. It’s for this reason that we suggest working with a hosting provider that understands the FX industry since they will have a good idea of what’s needed.
On the other side of the spectrum, “too much of a good thing” applies here as well. We’ve run into a couple cases where the hosting options have simply been overkill, creating unnecessary costs for the broker.
One of the advantage of our IT support services, is that we can assist forex brokers in deciding and setting up the optimal hosting set up based on their unique needs. Because we understand the industry as well as the IT components, such as VPS hosting vs a dedicated machine, we’ll be able to save them money without putting security or back up at risk. To learn more about our IT services, contact us
