Any serious algo must run from some high quality data center like AWS, Azure and etc. Otherwise one is asking for serious troubles.
Your manual trading doesn't run in a datacenter. What's the difference? There's nothing magic about the fact that the computer entered your order instead of your rapid fire mouse finger.
Huge difference between the 2. You probably never ran an algo shop otherwise you would not make such comment.
Running my algorithms is actually my full time job these days. Does that qualify as "running an algo shop"? Probably not. In any case my trades are going from the software to the broker without issue and have been for quite some time.
Redundancy, back-up, VPS server, were not on my priority list. My first priorities were: 1) Be profitable 2) Minimize period of drawdown. 3) Automate as much as possible I now have my own server at home, with UPS for network gear and server+1 monitor. No automatic backup network link, no automatic backup server. The most useful thing so far is the UPS. I don't understand people who are looking for VPS for 'retail' algo trading. Is it a thing like tattoos where you look bad ass just because you have the look?
I agree for small retail, and even then AWS and Azure are cheap. We are managing OPM, and have all of the above.
it depends on what the algo is doing and the trade volume that's been processed through (more to the algo itself IMO). I'd cut as much dependency as possible. ps wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger runs his blog straight from a server in his house...
Back test and use live demo for at least a month. Make sure you add protections for false signals. Make the system modular. I used MQL 5 quite extensively, have linked MT5 terminal to python libraries as well. Very happy with results.