Checkout TeamViewer excellent software.. I would just hook up laptop/desktop to high speed internet.. and load your algo's and let them run.. Keep journal and make changes as needed. No need to worry about hardware if your platform sends out protective session stops that the broker server stores. Every position when initiated with algo should have a broker server based stop. When you get up into mid 7 figures, than think of infrastructure outlays.
I didn't know that. I find IB FX good, but just a little costly for active trading. Glad I am not a US based trader
Agree with most of your comments, but not price. How can it be cheaper? I have a $500 linux machine with $16 GB and 1TB disk space. Cheapest quote I could find for an equivalent spec was $100 a month. That's not for co-location just a bog standard virtual server. Even if I have to pay $10 a month in electricity that's a breakeven of less than 6 months; but I'll probably use the machine for several years. Why do you need the latest hardware? You're not having to support some brokers fancy GUI. I'm not latency sensitive so I don't need a UPS. If latency is an issue then yes you need super expensive co-lo. If it's not an issue then pretty much any cheap box will do. I could understand why a small institutional fund would use virtual servers or managed hosting, but not an individual trader; yes it might be more convenient but it certainly isn't cheaper. GAT
I guess that you are looking for a secondary computer for this "server" purpose. Will it only handle your automatic trading? Or will you also use it for other services? Which hardware you can use depends on what software needs you have. Other requirements could be that you want it to be independent of the mains power. In that case could a laptop be suitable. Or you would need a desktop in combination with a UPS. I am using an Intel NUC6 as secondary computer, dedicated for trading. The setup is rather similar to your picture: I use my main desktop computer to remotely control it. The Intel box uses Ubuntu as OS and runs IB's TWS plus my java software.
Here is a dedicated server in Chicago with 16gb ram for $50 a month, less ram is $25 a month. The VPS prices at this vendor are very reasonable. Not sure how far they are from CME in Aurora, IL. https://www.chicagovps.net/services/dedicated-servers
Cheapest to match the same spec with 16GB plus 1TB disk is $85 a month. So a bit cheaper than my original of $100 a month but still much more expensive than buying your own $500 box. Thanks for the link anyway, they look very competitive on price and I'm sure the OP will appreciate the info if they decide to go down this route. GAT
GAT[/QUOTE] As we assumed latency isn't an issue, you don't need a Chicago provider. There are plenty of providers in the $25 range, here's one for example (https://vpsdime.com/). Obviously we're not going to get an apples to apples on your exact configuration, but if you really need a TB of storage to run algos and backtest that's easy to get separately. So price-wise its roughly equivalent of buying a new box roughly every 2 years. Of course everyone has different utility curves, so what's good for you can certainly be different than what's good for me or the OP.
Main use is the price database obviously (code plus system data like positions doesn't take up much space). I also generate, and save, a lot of diagnostic information about the system. GAT
The biggest benefit of running your algo in the cloud is redundancy on the internet connection. If your internet access at home go down you have an outage and lose money. Same if computer or networking gear breaks and need to be replaced. It may be worth it to pay some extra $ for a VM in the cloud to get full internet and hardware redundancy, especially if it is your livelihood. An algo may fit to run in a mini instance and be cheap (depending on trading style, trade frequency, amount of semi-realtime data processing, etc).