Eze Castle Integration, Boston-based provider of technology and IT services to hedge funds and investment firms, has launched the Eze Link service

Eze Castle Integration, Boston-based provider of technology and IT services to hedge funds and investment firms, has launched the Eze Link service to provide clients streamlined connectivity to financial communities.

Eze Link bundles internet, FIX, market data and voice connectivity over a private network to provide financial firms with a highly secure, redundant and available communications network to power their trading operations.

The foundation of Eze Link is Eze Castle's ECINet Private Network, which serves as the communications gateway for more than 300 buy-side firms, delivering highly secure and redundant internet-based communications.

Extending the reach of ECINet, Eze Castle has established direct connectivity to the SunGard Transaction Network to provide customers with a single communications platform to reach all their trading counterparties, including broker/dealers, dark liquidity pools, crossing networks and other execution venues.

The SunGard Transaction Network is a trade automation and connectivity solution that links institutions throughout the financial services value chain, facilitating the purchase and sale of securities including US and foreign equities, fixed income, mutual funds, money market funds, certificates of deposit and commercial paper.

"Expanded connectivity is especially crucial in volatile markets where greater price transparency and best execution are needed," says Bob Ward, chief operating officer of SunGard's wealth management business.

"The SunGard Transaction Network helps investment firms to accelerate time to market, react quickly to market events, and access a wide universe of brokers for FIX order routing and trading through one secure connection. Eze Castle Integration and SunGard together provide a comprehensive and competitive communications package for buy-side firms."

Eze Link simplifies the start-up process and ongoing management of a firm's communications network, and can be deployed quickly to provide firms with the communications components necessary to jump-start trading operations. A dedicated team monitors the quality of service delivered and makes adjustments as necessary to ensure connectivity is operating at peak performance.

"Enhancing and streamlining trading operations while reducing costs and risk is a top priority for our clients and the investment industry as a whole," says Bob Guilbert, managing director of Eze Castle Integration. "In developing Eze Link we set out to leverage our networking expertise to provide a complete solution that bundles the communications elements critical to a firm."

Eze Castle Integration, which also has offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco and Stamford, Connecticut, offers products and services including start-up and relocation, outsourced technology support, professional services, telecommunications, business continuity planning and disaster recovery, archiving, storage, and internet service.