OATS Compliant Time Stamping with DocuClock

• All trades for NASD must show the complete date and time to the second.
• That the time is set to Eastern Standard Time and must be corrected to the NIST Atomic Clock. Computer clocks must be set within 3 seconds of the atomic clock.
• Dealers must keep a log or record of each time a clock receives a time synch from NIST and each time it sends out a correction to the trade clocks, and the trades clocks must indicate if it received this signal before the Market opens.
• Paper order tickets must be also stamped with the exact time in seconds.
• NASD audits approx. 2500 of its members every year

Beagle Software has  time synchronization solutions that keep a Windows desktop computer or an entire network synchronized to the atomic clock while maintaining a detailed log of all clock setting activity.  It will...

• Print the exact time based on the Atomic Clock.
• Meet NASD OATS Rules 6950 - 6957.
• All time stamps are logged to meet OATS requirements.

DocuClock allows you to print date and time to the second that's synchronized with the computer.

Date/Time Stamping                                        FEB 01, 2001 AM 9:00:39 

OATS requires that paper trades are stamped with the exact time. DocuClock is date/time stamper that will print the exact time on your order ticket. The DocuClock time stamper is directly connected to a Windows PC maintained at standard time.  Whenever a time stamp request is made it gets the exact standard time maintained by software running on the  computer.

Diagram of the DocuClock Solution

DocuClock can fit in the way your office works today

In the diagram, DocuClock is acting as a central time stamping facility in a Client/Server environment. In the Beagle Software solution ClockWatch Server services the time requests from workstations running ClockWatch Client. ClockWatch Server also keeps the computer it is running on set to the correct time by accessing external timeservers over the Internet or through a directly dialed connection. The trader's applications use the correct time maintained by ClockWatch while DocuClock time stamper provides a printed record of the exact time.

Maintaining the Correct Time

Since DocuClock gets the time from host computer, that computer must be maintained at the exact time.  Beagle Software offers both desktop solutions and networked solutions for maintaining the host computer at standard time.

Desktop Solutions
For stand alone computers, Beagle Software offers several software products will synchronize the computer to the Atomic Clock.  More on ClockWatch Desktop solutions...

Networked Solutions
For dealers handling electronic transactions in a networked environment, Beagle Software's approach is a simple yet powerful pair of software applications that use the hardware and system software you currently run.

The approach features a main time synchronization program that keeps the computer it is running on (the server) set to the correct time. It also handles requests for the correct time from the other PCs on the network (the clients). 

The ClockWatch host server's job is to keep the time accurate on the host and to process requests and send appropriate responses. The ClockWatch Client's job is to send requests to the ClockWatch server to maintain the correct time.  All interaction with external timeservers is done by the host server. The communication link with the clients must be a network (e.g., Ethernet) connection.

Beagle Software's systems offer you an easy way to implement OATS compliance to every Windows PC on your LAN

More on networking the DocuClock time stamper....

More on ClockWatch Client/Server in an OATS compliant environment...

Why Use Beagle Software?

As a potential Beagle Software customer, you can be secure in the knowledge that you would be working with a vendor who specializes in installing time synchronization solutions for the securities industry.

For more information or field engineering support contact

Frequently Asked Questions about OATS
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