Competitive Advantages of Currency Server
This article focuses on unique features of
the
Currency Server software in
relation to currency-enabling solutions by third parties.
Highlights
The following are some of the main factors which
differentiate Currency Server from other products and
services.
- Other tools tie you to a single data feed. Currency
Server supports
multiple providers of exchange rate data (both free
and subscription-based). You can change provider without
changing your code. You can aggregate or compare data
from multiple sources, or fall back to a different
provider in case of problems.
- Some products only support one interface. Currency
Server includes a .NET and SOAP Web service
interface, a COM interface, and an Ajax-like
scripting interface, so you don't have
to choose today and be concerned about changing your
mind tomorrow if your requirements evolve.
- Some tools require complex manual installation.
Thanks to its refined
user interface and
documentation,
Currency Server can be set up in
five minutes.
- Some solutions only support updates to exchange
rates. Currency Servers also supports automatic updates
of currency codes, currency names, regime status, etc.
- Other products cannot be configured to support
future European Economic and
Monetary Union currencies. Currency Server includes
both manual and automatic support for future EMU
currencies.
- Currency Server offers unmatched support for all
currencies and locales of the world, including
Unicode-enabled objects and interfaces.
- Beware of imitations. The Currency Server software
and
documentation incorporate
more than ten years of
development, testing and daily use and feedback.
Reliability
Currency Server is more reliable and fault tolerant than
other solutions.
- Instead of needing to access an external Web service
or other data source for each operation (which
introduces a weak link both in terms of performance and
in terms of reliability) the software works locally.
External FX feed data is accessed, validated and copied to the
local cache only when necessary (e.g. a few times per
day, or as set by you in the software options).
- Sophisticated monitoring, failover and notification
options are available to manage possible warning and
error conditions (while the software keeps running and
serving client requests). Currency Server was designed
to put you in control.
Performance
Currency Server is faster than other solutions.
- Currency Server is 100% written in C++, with
critical parts carefully optimized for maximum
performance.
- While including a Web service interface based on
managed .NET code, the software also features a
COM interface, which is implemented as a very
fast in-process server DLL and which can provide
superior local performance compared to both
out-of-process servers and Web services.
- All exchange rate information and currency
conversion requests access a local cache (online FX feeds do not cause delays or dependencies).
Costs
Currency Server was designed to offer a cost advantage
both as a software and service, and from a broader TCO
perspective.
- As a software component, Currency Server can be
significantly less expensive
than an in-house solution.
- As a service, Currency Server allows you to control
your present and future costs by supporting multiple and
diverse data feeds,
both free and subscription-based. You can look for the
service provider that is best for your needs of today,
and adapt to whatever your needs and the services market
of tomorrow may be.
- As a combination of software and service, Currency
Server allows you to choose the best of both worlds.
While other software packages are only sold in
combination with a service subscription, the retail
version of the Currency Server software is independent
of service subscriptions (a multitude of free and
subscription-based feeds is supported out of the box).
- The Currency Server software itself is a one-time
purchase (also see the
upgrade
policy). There are no subscription-like fees for the
software. Other than premium support options, standard
technical support is free. If you choose one of the
supported free FX feeds, your only cost will be the
one-time software license.
- Because the software is independent from the data
feed service, in case of unexpected problems you can
change provider of exchange rate data at any time
without losing your code investment. Compare that to
suddenly having to re-write your interfaces to support a
different component or service.
- Because they use the same interface, you can scale
from a managed service
to an in-house deployment of Currency Server software
without changing your existing code.
- While Currency Server helps increase your sales, it
also reduces your costs: clients comparing the TCO of
different tools and options especially appreciated the
fact that Currency Server was easier to deploy and
maintain, actually reduced problem and support cases,
included support for future euro currencies, and offered
a choice of both free and subscription-based rates.
Transparency
Have you ever wondered where the currency rates and codes
used by some tools come from, and how they are maintained?
- Currency Server uses official and duly licensed ISO
4217 currency codes. The codes covered by this standard,
as well as the registered trademark "ISO", are the
property of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), and are used under license in the
software.
- Currency System has a contract with the ISO 4217 Maintenance
Agency under which it is immediately notified of
any variation to the codes or names of any currency in
the world. Currency Server supports different mechanisms
to manually or automatically update such non-exchange
rate currency properties.
- Currency Server supports a diversity of exchange
rate sources, which are clearly identified (as listed in
the FX Servers tab of Currency Server Manager).
- In addition to supporting major official and free
data feeds, and commercial and subscription-based
services, Currency System offers a basic feed
consisting of data aggregated from multiple official
sources, which covers a selection of currencies.
- The data provided by other commercial and
subscription-based services may be covered by
copyrights, redistribution restrictions and other terms
of use. Currency System does not (and never did) "relay" data
provided by such commercial entities in its own data
feed.
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