The growing technology business of exchange operator NYSE Euronext will collaborate with financial market data provider Xignite to gain more traction in the ever-expanding cloud-based market data arena.

Market data is clearly one of the most important aspects for traders and investors in today’s marketplace. High-frequency traders rely on fast, accurate market data feeds from exchanges in order to employ their trading strategies, while retail and institutional investors use historical market data to make informed decisions about where a security is heading.

Market data services have become a key revenue generator for exchanges as well, whether it is sold to market data vendors such as Xignite, or sold directly to the end user of the information. Disseminating market data via cloud-based methods is sure to grow going forward as the underlying infrastructures become increasingly robust.

The goal for many going to the cloud is to lift the entire high-cost data infrastructure into the cloud, where hardware and software resources, apps and market data can be distributed, shared, and leveraged.

“We envision market data delivered in various different ways and we will look to expand that going forward,” Todd Watkins of the Global Market Data unit of NYSE Technologies told Markets Media. “This will bring an additional channel for market participants to receive our content.”

NYSE and Xignite have agreed to launch a new service providing access to real-time, historical and reference market data for all NYSE Euronext markets via a cloud-based platform. NYSE Technologies Market Data Web Services is geared towards non-latency sensitive clients and those in remote locations. The first phase offers real-time retail reference pricing for NYSE, NYSE MKT and NYSE Arca markets. The second phase, scheduled for the third quarter of 2012, will offer NYSE Bonds data, NYSE Liffe Level 1 and Level 2 data, and NYSE and NYSE MKT Order Imbalances.

“The delivery of market data content via websites and mobile devices continues to build momentum,” said Stephane Dubois, Xignite chief executive and founder. “This relationship is about is taking NYSE market data and making it available from the cloud on demand, which is something that NYSE had not done before. The initial offering is for real time pricing for the U.S. markets.

One of the largest strengths of cloud-based services is that they can be tailored to a specific purpose, and delivered on-demand. For instance, a customer can receive a specific update for what they are looking for, rather than need to manage a plethora of large updates that are not relevant to that particular user’s needs.

Xignite offers more than 50 financial cloud application programming interfaces and fulfills more than five billion service requests per month for real-time, historical and reference data covering global equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income, mutual funds, derivatives and OTC instruments.

NYSE’s technology business has grown to the point where it is essentially being operated as a standalone business, separate from its exchange operations. Such is evidenced by its move to open up its data centers to outside telecoms, service providers and even rival exchanges. The move is part of a shift to expand its non-trading services, as it aims for $1 billion in technology services revenues within the next three years.