SOLT+: A Software-Defined Load Balancing Framework for High Frequency Trading Networks

Modern financial networks, particularly those supporting High-Frequency Trading (HFT) systems, are characterized by intense data flows and high packet rates, where even minor variations in latency can impact trading outcomes. The problem of queuing and latency management in such networks has become increasingly critical. Dynamic load balancing comes as a solution to this by splitting traffic and sending it on multiple paths. Usually, the problem observed is re-ordering. In response to this challenge, we present a novel Software-Defined Load Balancing Framework for splitting traffic at the packet level without causing packet reordering, which is especially suited for High-Frequency Trading Networks. We propose SOLT+ a traffic splitting algorithm that inspects bursts of packets specifically choosing packets to avoid re-ordering. We perform MATLAB simulations to show the accuracy and compare SOLT + with state-of-the-art algorithms.