Within Beeks Analytics, a Session is a field that is used to record the FIX CompIDs of the FIX session. For non-FIX traffic, this field will be populated with IP addresses.

More generally in computer networking, a session is a temporary and interactive exchange of information between two or more devices or applications. It represents a logical connection that is established, maintained, and terminated as part of communication over a network.

Most common sessions, such as those in TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) , involve exactly two endpoints (e.g. a client and a server).

Sessions involving more than two endpoints, such as multicast or broadcast communications, are less common in financial markets and typically require specific protocols or architectures to handle the complexity (e.g. session management in conferencing or streaming platforms). Often these applications use UDP (User Datagram Protocol) as their data transport and implement their own session logic at a higher level (e.g., VoIP calls using SIP to establish and manage sessions over UDP, or RTP for streaming).

Related terms

Multicast
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
UDP (User Datagram Protocol)