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London Stock Exchange To Abandon Windows
BBCWatcher writes "Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that the London Stock Exchange is abandoning its Microsoft Windows-based trading platform: 'Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation had their face slapped this September when the LSE's Windows-based TradElect system brought the market to a standstill for almost an entire day .... Sources at the LSE tell me to this day that the problem was with TradElect ...'"
Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation had their face slapped this September when the LSE (London Stock Exchange)'s Windows-based TradElect system brought the market to a standstill for almost an entire day. While the LSE denied that the collapse was TradElect's fault, they also refused to explain what the problem really wa.
Right, so it wasn't M$'s TradElect's fault, therefore it clearly was M$'s TradElect's fault. Someone give this guy a job at the FBI!
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
It's not Windows vs Linux.
It's TradElect vs MarketPrizm, which happen to run on Windows vs Linux respectively.
TradElect never managed its performance promises, which suggests lies from marketing and / or programmers unable to deliver what they were asked to. Despite what the Linux fanboys love to say, inferior software isn't Windows-only, and does exist on Linux too.
This could easily have been the other way around, ditching Linux and a shit piece of trades software for Windows and a good bit of trades software. The OS is irrelevant here, except to fanboys of either side.
Btw. the same would apply to a blank linux java stack....
You need realtime stuff to do that!
They're abandoning TradElect and the platform it happened to be on. The OS is really a background to all of this. The primary cause of the switch has more to do with TradElect sucking than anything else. Having worked on the tech side of the finance industry, I am not at all surprised. They have some of the worst programmers in the world. Standard software methodology is rarely embraced. Unit tests? Code review? What's that? At the hedge fund where I worked, basically any time a developer left someone either had to pick up the pieces of crap he wrote or start over. Almost everyone choose the latter. I remember one morning one of the applications stopped working and we realized it's because we retired an old DB server and moved it to a new host. I asked the developer to just point it to the new host. They couldn't because the dumbasses had hard coded the hostname! They couldn't change it without a recompile! This was at one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, at the time at least. The problem was that none of the partners knew anything about software development so they didn't know if the CTO they hired was any good. They went by stupid things like names of the school he was from and names of his previous employers. His previous employers probably did the same. Software development in finance is a giant circle jerk.
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IF the article had said "We looked into this system in some detail, albeit after we'd bought it, and discovered that anything based on Windows was fundamentally incapable of meeting our needs. So we've decided to move", then I would take it more seriously.
As it is, it sounds like a political move from a new managing director who's trying to make themselves out to be as different as possible from the previous one - and one of the ways they're doing that is to ditch the computer system. The fact that the old system runs Windows and the obvious alternative runs Linux is neither here nor there.
Face facts, it's just as possible to produce a lousy system based on Linux as it is on Windows.
I don’t know if Accenture sucks, but Microsoft itself was involved in first person in the development of the project (they were proud to announce this until now).
The fact that not even Microsoft’s involvement was able to make the system meet its requirements looks *very* indicative to me.
From Microsoft's case study http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=200042
In the development, roll-out, and implementation processes, Microsoft worked closely with the London Stock Exchange to ensure not only that they understood their immediate requirements, but that the solution fitted their long-term business plans as specified in the TRM project.
Microsoft was equally involved in this project no matter how you try to spin it.
Was I the first person to think "London Stock Exchange was running on Windows? HOLY SHIT!" :P )
(Of course I know I wasn't... but cmon!
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
But, then, it's not often you see enterprise software fail quite so badly and publicly as was the case with the LSE
A quote from another source is appropriate here:
This is a good death. There's no shame in this, in a man's death. A man who has done fine works. We're making a better world. All of them - better worlds.
article:
So, might I suggest to the LSE that they consider Linux as the foundation for their next stock software infrastructure?
In the development, roll-out, and implementation processes, Microsoft worked closely with the London Stock Exchange
davecb5620@gmail.com
I was involved in discussions (and more) with the LSE before (during but not so much) and after they decided to select Microsoft / Accenture / India / Outsourcing as the path for their solution and I know some of the key decision makers. Under the Microsoft umbrella, they were significantly influenced by the resources Microsoft was willing to commit to making the project work despite the newness of .NET as an ifrastructure.
It is important to remember where the LSE was before the TradeElect project, they had completely outsourced their platform to Accenture, the amount they spent per annum on keeping that platform up and running were phenomenal, an order of magnitude more than some of our clients were spending and they (our clients) were running much higher performance systems. TradeElect was designed to decrease these costs without compromising the "I don't lose sleep at night worryin about the systems" position of senior managers. I firmly believed it was a mistake to believe that .NET at the heart of the platform would meet the requirements of an exchange trading platform.
I have no real issue with Windows as the OS under the platform, really for a trading system the OS is providing a TCP stack and some IPC and thats about it. Everything else and the vast majority of the bottlenecks are in your application stack, whether it be tools or application code you are writing for your specific problem domain. Although one might argue that the Microsoft IPC tools can be argued as "weak/complicated".
It will be interesting to see which people the LSE use to provide the analysis of which way to jump with this decision. Too many very senior folk were involved all the way through the TradeElect project for heads to roll, but it will be interesting to watch who says what when the final decision of what to do is announced.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Switzerland scenario + idiot pilot = crash
Switzerland scenario + smart pilot = no crash
Airbus scenario + idiot pilot = crash
Airbus scenario + smart pilot = crash
Car analogy! We may get upset at auto companies that take shortcuts in safety features that may cost lives when the cars crash (Pinto), but I have never seen anyone blame Ford for the accident occurring in the first place.
Out of curiosity, who made the planes that crashed over Switzerland? You seem to imply Boeing but don't explicitly say it.
Like I said, it is clever marketing. Even after I pointed the fail to you, you still missed it. :)
You think MDDS is their trading system? It is not
Supermontage is what is executing NASDAQ trades (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/supermontage.asp)
The citations I posted were older because that was when Supermontage was rolled out.
Your FUD rolls off me like water on lotus leaves
Here is what actually does the work you claim MDDS does (http://www.tibco.com/resources/customers/successstory_nasdaq.pdf )
The reason this is significant is that Microsoft were heavily involved in the development of this system and are still saying how wonderful it is that the LSE runs on their amazing software. The fact of the matter is that it's been a total disaster both for the LSE and for Microsoft's PR machine. Whether it's a political powerplay as well remains to be seen, but the simple fact is that the software sucked and not even Microsoft could make it work.
"I have nothing totally against MS; its just that I wish management would make informed decisions not based on bottom-line profits but rather based on the needs/wants of their customer base. There's more to business than just the almighty dollar you must remember.'
I have not met a customer in the last 20yrs who did not use windows as the OS for all or part of their system(s).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Switzerland scenario != Airbus scenario
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
No, and they were particularly not fired for threatening to buy !MS, sot that MS would come back with better pricing.
:)
Which dosn't help that much if the actual problem is that Windows isn't the right tool for the job. It would be a bit like someone in Florida congratulating themselves on being able to buy snowcats at low prices
Tell him to have less meetings, so people won't have to compete for rooms, projectors and so on.
Productivity will soar.
Give programmers private offices with a part of the profits.
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