Trading Platform Procurement Checklist
Practical Requirements, Capacity Planning & Exit Strategy
A practical checklist for evaluating trading platform vendors: capacity, scope, change control and exit planning. Free download from Orrnn now.
Designed for CTOs, institutional procurement officers, and brokerage founders evaluating trading infrastructure
Turnkey Brokerage Launch Services
FxTrusts owns managed brokerage implementation and launch services — for that engagement, visit FxTrusts. They provide end-to-end regulatory licensing, banking setup, and CRM onboarding.
Workstation Features & Seat Pricing
For live RTX5 workstation features, commercial seat pricing, trader downloads, and SDK access, visit the official RTX5 site. Orrnn provides the core architecture underneath.
RFP Requirements Checklist
Use this interactive evaluation matrix during vendor demonstrations and RFP scoring. Mark each criterion as verified once demonstrable evidence is delivered:
1. Capacity Planning & Throughput Benchmarks
Evaluating system performance under real-world market stress
Can the vendor demonstrate sustained execution throughput under load rather than theoretical peak bursts?
Technical Requirement: Demand verifiable load-test benchmarks showing sustained orders/sec without queue degradation or packet loss.
What is the engine's behavior during sudden volatility spikes and order book backpressure?
Technical Requirement: Confirm non-blocking architecture, memory-pinned circular buffers, and pre-trade margin validation under high concurrency.
Are servers positioned in institutional financial datacenters with verifiable cross-connects?
Technical Requirement: Verify physical rack presence in Equinix NY4, LD4, FR2, or TY3 with single-mode fiber cross-connect options.
What are the exact compute, memory, and network requirements to run the software at scale?
Technical Requirement: Request a detailed hardware sizing matrix based on active trading accounts and peak order message volume.
2. Scope Definition & Technology Ownership
Distinguishing standard delivery from bespoke engineering engagements
Does the vendor clearly separate core software licensing from managed brokerage operations?
Technical Requirement: A pure technology vendor should provide software architecture and protocol bridges without providing regulated brokerage or banking services.
Is there a transparent 'What's Included vs. Custom Scope' Statement of Work (SOW) matrix?
Technical Requirement: Ensure core engine binaries, standard FIX gateways, and pre-trade risk templates are covered under the base platform license.
Are integration protocols built on open, standardized specifications (FIX 4.4 / 5.0 SP2)?
Technical Requirement: Verify the platform supports standard FIX tag/value and binary feeds without requiring proprietary software wrappers.
Where are end-user trading terminal features and workstation pricing officially maintained?
Technical Requirement: Terminal licensing, workstation seat tiers, and end-user downloads must have transparent, authoritative pricing.
3. Change-Control & Operational Governance
Ensuring stability, zero-downtime deployments, and auditability
Is an isolated staging sandbox provided for regression testing prior to production deployments?
Technical Requirement: The vendor must provide an identical non-production environment with synthetic market data feeds for client testing.
What is the vendor's hotfix rollback policy and Recovery Time Objective (RTO)?
Technical Requirement: Contractual commitment to automated rollback mechanisms if a deployed build fails health checks (Target RTO < 30s).
What is the minimum notice period and migration window before an API version is deprecated?
Technical Requirement: Require a minimum 180-day deprecation notice with backward-compatibility support for mission-critical client gateways.
Does the platform generate immutable, out-of-band compliance audit streams?
Technical Requirement: Continuous FIX Drop-Copy streaming and cryptographically hashed event logging for post-trade clearing and regulatory reporting.
4. Vendor Exit Planning & Data Portability
The critical section most vendors hide — preventing vendor lock-in
Does your firm retain 100% legal ownership and sovereign custody of all client data?
Technical Requirement: Clear contractual terms stipulating that all trader records, account histories, balances, and positions belong exclusively to the client.
Can historical trade ledgers, user accounts, and positions be exported in open, non-proprietary formats?
Technical Requirement: Ability to extract raw database dumps in standardized SQL, CSV, or JSON formats at any time without punitive vendor export fees.
Who owns the intellectual property (IP) of custom algorithms, indicators, and proprietary routing logic?
Technical Requirement: Explicit clause confirming that custom trading bots, quant algorithms, and routing rules developed by or for your firm remain your exclusive IP.
What structured transition and migration support is contractually committed upon contract termination?
Technical Requirement: Mandatory 90-day transition assistance window ensuring continuous operations while migrating data to a new platform.
Can liquidity providers, prime brokers, and CRM integrations be switched without rebuilding the platform?
Technical Requirement: Decoupled architecture allowing modular swapping of bridge adapters without touching core matching logic.
Evaluate Orrnn's
Architecture
Put our systems engineering team through your procurement checklist. Schedule an architectural review to inspect our source models, load benchmarks, and exit guarantees.