page_title: Bloomberg Terminal
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Bloomberg Terminal / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Bloomberg six-screen setup @ Bloomberg West, San Francisco 2012 Bloomberg Terminal photo by jm3. Creative Commons licensed, Attribution, ShareAlike For use on Bloomberg Terminal article.
context_page_description: The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which users can monitor and analyze real-time financial market data and place trades on the electronic trading platform. It was developed by businessman Michael Bloomberg. The system also provides news, price quotes, and messaging across its proprietary secure network. It is well known among the financial community for its black interface, which has become a recognizable trait of the service. The first version of the terminal was released in December 1982.
  Most large financial firms have subscriptions to Bloomberg Professional Services. Many exchanges charge their own additional fees for access to real time price feeds across the terminal. The same applies to various news organizations.
  All Bloomberg Terminals are leased in two-year cycles, with leases originally based on how many displays were connected to each terminal. Most Bloomberg setups have between two and six displays. It is available for an annual fee of $20,000 per user.
context_section_description: The terminal implements a client-server architecture with the server running on a multiprocessor Unix platform. The client, used by end users to interact with the system, is a Windows application that typically connects directly through a router provided by Bloomberg and installed on-site. End users can also make use of an extra service (Bloomberg Anywhere) to allow the Windows application to connect via internet/IP, or Web access via a Citrix client. There are also applications that allow mobile access via Android, BlackBerry, and iOS. The server side of the terminal was originally developed using mostly the programming languages Fortran and C. Recent years have seen a transition towards C++ and embedded JavaScript on the clients and servers. Also, the usage of languages like Python and TypeScript has increased.
  Each server machine runs multiple instances of the server process. Using a proprietary form of context-switching, the servers keep track of the state of each end user, allowing consecutive interactions from a single user to be handled by different server processes. The graphical user interface (GUI) code is also proprietary.
caption: A Bloomberg terminal with a multi-monitor set-up composed of six screens
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