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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 ...'"
...Huzzah!
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
around the world are looking at alternatives for MS products.
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx
Make your own damn clicky.
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.
"Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation"
This just made my day. Now i can go back to bed.
Thanks!
I'm in the industry, so I have a little more background on this. They spent about 40M GBP building the system, and it's only been used for two years. It was (entirely?) outsourced to Accenture. Other reasons why the system sucks: It can only handle about 10,000 orders/second, and has latency numbers that are incredibly high (5 milliseconds+).
Looking at other exchanges, there are trading platforms that have been able to last 10+ years while scaling quite well.
TradElect was/is a project management and technical disaster.
Did the project. They needed a dedicated response time in the 1/100th second range and used a combination of Windows, SQL Server and .Net!
The project was doomed from day 0!
The article is at fault here, Windows alone is not at fault it is the entire stack beginning from the OS up to the implementation language which is at fault!
NYSE and OMX both run Linux based systems. I trade on OMX Stockholm and there is a lot of hickups. I've heard a lot of bad things about NYSE too.
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.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
...is just the WRONG platform for this. Stock Exchange, like many transaction based business, needs real time systems and Windows 2003 plus SQL as far I know don't make a RT platform.
Yeah I read those too ;) So windows issue or not, it is a Microsoft problem :
to wit; page 4:
"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."
and
"Robin Paine, Chief Technical Officer at the Exchange, says: âoeThe London Stock Exchange was looking for a responsive partner to engage across all phases of the Technology Roadmap programme. The collaborative approach Microsoft offered made it an ideal choice."
Any more questions on whether Microsoft was "really" involved? Then go do your own research -- there never was any doubt.
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.
I worked on trading systems at the CBOE for a couple of years and one thing I can say for sure is that the only Microsoft systems there are the front-ends for the traders who insist on Windows. All the back-ends, where the real activity takes place, everything is Linux. So, only the trader GUIs are Windows, and everything else is Linux running on x86 blades - racks and racks of them. We never got a virus or trojan on the trading systems, but we were scrubbing viruses and other malware off the traders' front-ends all the time. Anyway, when I read about the LSE going with a Microsoft solution for their trading infrastructure, I could only shake my head and say "Remember Denver International Airport!"...
"Looking at other exchanges, there are trading platforms that have been able to last 10+ years while scaling quite well." - by Jerky McNaughty (1391) on Friday July 03, @09:40AM (#28571007)
NASDAQ is an example of this, & yes: NASDAQ has maintained the "fabled '5-9's" of 99.999% uptime on Windows Server 2003 + SQLServer 2005 (in failover clusters) since late 2005, acting as the official dissemination system of official trade data:
----
NASDAQ Migrates to SQL Server 2005:
http://windowsfs.com/enews/nasdaq-migrates-to-sql-server-2005
&/or
NASDAQ Uses SQL Server 2005 - Reducing Costs through Better Data Management:
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/09/17/sqlauthority-news-nasdaq-uses-sql-server-2005-reducing-costs-through-better-data-management/
"NASDAQ, the worlds first electronic stock market replaced its aging mainframe computers with Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 on two 4-node clusters to support its Market Data Dissemination System (MDDS). Every trade processed in the NASDAQ marketplace goes through the system with Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 handling some 5,000 transactions per second at market open. The system also responds to about 10,000 queries a day and is able to handle real-time queries against data without slowing the database down."
+
Case Studies - Financial Services:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2005/en/us/cs-financial-roi.aspx?pf=true [microsoft.com] [microsoft.com] [microsoft.com] [microsoft.com]
"NASDAQ Deploys SQL Server 2005 to Support Real-Time Trade Booking and Queries
NASDAQ, which became the worlds first electronic stock market in 1971, and remains the largest U.S. electronic stock market, is constantly looking for more-efficient ways to serve its members. As the organization prepared to retire its aging large mainframe computers, it deployed Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 on two 4-node clusters to support its Market Data Dissemination System (MDDS). Every trade that is processed in the NASDAQ marketplace goes through the MDDS system, with SQL Server 2005 handling some 5,000 transactions per second at market open. SQL Server 2005 simultaneously handles about 100,000 queries a day, using SQL Server 2005 Snapshot Isolation to support real-time queries against the data without slowing the database. NASDAQ is enjoying a lower total cost of ownership compared to the large mainframe computer system that the SQL Server 2005 deployment has replaced."
----
NOW - the actual PROOF of that "stability/uptime":
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=MarketShare
"NASDAQ is renowned for its high performance technology and has proven reliability with 99.999+% uptime. Whats more, firms count on NASDAQ for unsurpassed speed and tested capacity to execute trades quickly and efficiently."
----
AND, "There ya are"... Evidence of the possible stability, security, & speed on Windows, in a high tpm environs, keeping stable & running F A S T 24x7 for 1/2 a decade++ going strong, acting as the official trade data dissemination system for NASDAQ!
APK
P.S.=? Personally, & especially based on the evidences here (the thread topic itself, & the NASDAQ data I just provided here)? Well - I think a great deal of stability & uptime has to do a LOT with the skills of those architecting a system, first, AND later those that have the task of maintaining it also (this means the network engineering staff AND coding teams around said projects), as well as their personal work-ethics - not so much on the Opera
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.
I never understood why Microsoft made a specific server for stock exchanges anyways. It sure does e-mail great though.
Mere facts backed up by references are nothing compared to what you want to believe - silence him!
Do projects of a similar scope on Windows/SQL Server succeed while others fail? I contend that the answer is yes. Here's the secret....the programmers and customers assigned to work on the custom development project and their skills, ability, intelligence and maturity will determine the success of the project. This isn't a platform failure. It's a people failure.
In other news, the London Stock Exchange will shortly be abandoning the pound, as well.
DOS?
CP/M?
VMS?
OS/400?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Microsoft promised their operating system was capable of meeting demands. Microsoft was heavily involved in the implementation of the system.
Microsoft knew their operating systems don't do real-time processing, but insisted they could meet the demands anyway.
I seriously doubt this is a "political move". The cost of this transition will be high, and if their current system was salvageable they'd keep it.
A finanical institution that gets it wrong? Who'd have thought it, in this current climate....
Upper management are usually extremely non technical, which brings up a lot of problems...
As you pointed out, they are no good at identifying if someone else is technically competent...
Aside from that, they are more likely to trust marketing literature and advice from people they play golf with (who are likely to have vested interests)...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Welcome our smug, bearded, Unix liking overloads.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"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
.NET Framework in Windows Server® 2003 and the Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 database, the new Infolect® system .. with support from Microsoft and Accenture, shows the London Stock Exchange's leadership in developing next-generation trading systems"
What exactly were the problems with TradElect and not caused by the underlying platform. According to this an 'external test environment' was in place, at least since Jan 2009.
"Availability of the external test environment (Customer Development Service or CDS) for TradElect and Infolect: early January 2009"
"Using the Microsoft®
davecb5620@gmail.com
I'm no Microsoft apologist, but I fail to see any specific examples of where the Windows based TradeElect software failed. I've seen better journalism in a high school yearbook class.
"Accenture .. outsourcing .. India .. No regression testing .. programmers do not fully understand the business processes, there are often major flaws in their software which force complete recompilation of the software"
Do you have any verifiable third party citations for the above statements?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Now a question, or rather two questions. I'm curious (and we use SQL Server 2005) .NET code or something else like C++?
What is the application layer for the NASDAQ system? I don't see that referenced in any of the articles? Is it
Am I right in thinking that one simple factor in the performance difference would be that the LSEX system ran on SQL Server 2000 rather than 2005?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
on one Microsoft way, it's never Microsofts fault... it's always a third party, that's just the way Microsoft operates (one Microsoft way).
"NYSE and OMX both run Linux based systems. I trade on OMX Stockholm and there is a lot of hickups. I've heard a lot of bad things about NYSE too", anonymous coward
"I contracted with the Chicago-based branch of the NYSE a couple years back and I can confirm the bad Linux setups", IANAAC
Do either of you, have any verifiable third party sources for these statements? When was the last time the Stockholm or NYSE stopped trading because of a Linux "outage?
davecb5620@gmail.com
"around the world are looking at alternatives for MS products. "
Yes I believe Solaris will do nicely.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
"It was (entirely?) outsourced to Accenture .. TradElect was/is a project management and technical disaster", Jerky McNaughty
.. was first developed with Microsoft and Accenture "
"A prototype
"There was quite a high degree of risk involved on both sides. But Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade were very keen to make sure this would work. They pulled out all the stops"
davecb5620@gmail.com
In the development, roll-out, and implementation processes, Microsoft worked closely with the London Stock Exchange
davecb5620@gmail.com
Strong words, such as 'fool', are what a lot of people on Slashdot would call Microsoft bashing, EXCEPT this time, such words are eminently justified by the gravity of the situation. This time, you could pass a lot of the blame to other people and other software, and even then, Microsoft's share would be sufficient to justify words such as fool. In fact, it's hard to see how Microsoft's role in the English Stockmarket glitch could even conceivably be small enough that they don't deserve everything that's being said here. If you go solely by MS's own press releases and advertising claims, and how much they charged the exchange for their software, that's enough.
However, in the summary, shouldn't the excerpt be in double quotes? Single quotes make it look like a paraphrase, and it is intended to be an actual quote from the source. Right or wrong, these strong words are from the original article, not the Slashdot submitter.
Who is John Cabal?
I didn't know about the LSE adopting windows. But we can see here the problems that came of it. I remember a story about the UK navy using Windows to power their battleships and all the flak that I and everyone thought would happen when push comes to shove. Anyone know how that turned out?
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."
The fact is the article has nothing to do with dumping Windows for Linux, but one trading platform for another. Neither OS is a real-time OS (without RT extensions or patches or -rt), both can be used in soft real-time applications as is. This is just another good story for the daily WTF, with TRWTF being the headline of the slashdot story.
Most people have never tried implementing an application that handles such a heavy load in any system. I worked for an ISP that implemented a system, not as big, but in the hundreds of thousands of transactions a day. We started with Windows servers and switched to Linux -- not because of faults in Windows, but because of cost. I always chuckled when I saw those TCO ads by Microsoft. If you are a computer professional who has been trained in both systems, setup and install time usually goes to Linux. Now I know many windows guys are saying that it only takes seconds to restore their systems. I don't know any professional Windows shop that doesn't rely upon some type of system ghosting, because windows takes so long to install from scratch. Sure ghosting has an edge, but from CD our Linux server install took 15 minutes. I've seen shops stick to a platform after the hardware is out of date, because they are so scared of the time to re-setup their systems. Why doesn't Windows XP get upgraded. Microsoft serves its target market well, which is companies from 5 to 500 employees. Their products are overly complex for home users and the licensing fees so large for large companies that companies like Sun have found it cheaper to write their own office applications and to give them away for free.
MS used to run lots of ads, including banner ads on slashdot, about how the london stock exchange chose windows over linux... Those ads stopped very quickly when they had the big outage a few months ago.
Several European banks had their asses handed back to them, too, last spring for trying to shove their Windows-uberalles ideology into their core activities. For several months it was (maybe still is) practically impossible to do basic banking. People could go into others accounts, money from their own accounts could not be transfered, money could not be paid into their accounts. It was a hardship for many small businesses that were stupid enough to put their business accounts at a bank where ideology trumps technology. When your own customers can't pay you, money becomes a problem. There, too, the problem lay squarely on the attempt to use MS .NET instead of something workable. It's just a half-assed copy of Java locked into one vendor. After the banks getting bad press for weeks, there was a vague statement made about the company that takes care of the network, but not tying that statement to the ongoing outages.
It's not important to laugh at MS for making crap products, it's important to not use them. The problem with MS products has been around as long as the company itself so it's not like so-called technical 'experts' can claim ignorance or any other excuse. Adding the phrase "with a computer" doesn't absolve criminal negligence for recommending MS products.
Technology might be a matter of choice, but as the late US Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, has said, the right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. So, that choice does not include the right to screw things up beyond belief for everyone else. It's not a nameless or faceless "terrorist" group that is costing our businesses, shutting down our infrastructure, tangling our air traffic control, our power grid, our hospitals, or stock exchanges and banks. The people promoting Windows and Microsoft technologies have real names and faces and walk among us every day. Take them out and we've won the first round. Why is the military sitting on its hands here? The damage is easy to add up and it's even easier to remove the cause. A side benefit from the cleanup would be a restoration of the freemarket and the usual subsequent boom of economic activity.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I think we can see which philosophy would have saved hundreds of lives in that case.
I see this regularly on /. but do remember that over Switzerland planes collided mid air because one of the pilots was allowed to override the anti collision system. If the two anti collisions systems would have mad it up between themselves hundreds would be still alive.
So both options have killed already and scores are currently even. It is just sad that people have just a short / selective memory. Well it is quite obviously that the /. crowd want to protect Boing.
Martin
Vaughn does some sleight of hand with the term "Mission Critical". I would say from personal experience in a large high energy physics experiment that Windows NT/XP is not the best platform for a high performance/high availability application. The LSE experience may have been similar, and perhaps aggravated by incompetent consultant, but to conclude from this that .Net is not a good platform for "Mission Critical" applications is just false. I work on several "Mission Critical" .Net applications at a medium bank where 10 ms response times would be way overkill...
That being said, if you really want to make your platform bulletproof, code it in C/C++.
I'm do more Java development, but that sounds more like bad design than .NET's fault.
Why are you creating so much garbage that it takes tens or hundreds of milliseconds to resolve?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I'm sure the LSE has no idea who's actually to blame, and is just dumping Windows/.NET because it's so easy to migrate off of.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
google for "London Stock Exchange site:microsoft.com" and fiddle around a bit looking at current vs. cached pages.
I bet if you interviewed Ballmer, he'd say something like "London has a Stock Exchane?!? I sure as fsck never heard of it"
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Are you sure that answer was for me?
I just thought it'd be funny remembering that NASA was using an Access ODBC driver in such a big project. It was just a counter-example of what the GP had said. I wasn't offended at all - I just think there is no reason to think there is a tendency in governments and etc of switching to Linux. I think they should, but I don't think it's happening. Citation needed, you know.
You seem to be a nice guy, sorry I made you so mad.
Look at this. That was me.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Only SJVN is older, has less hair on his scalp and more on his face, and I assume his Asheville, North Carolina residence is not his parents' basement.
That could be a Star Trek's Starfleet uniform he is wearing though.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Was that recent Seattle train crash also connected to MS ?
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Microsoft killed his parents, his dog, two goldfishes and his pet cucumber (to whom he refers as Reginald).
He has been fuming about anything remotely connected to Microsoft ever since.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Priceless.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
that the articles can't be buried and that to make any headway, the shills and other turfers have to make some form of argument in order to be modded up...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
So, if I Google for sentences in this post, am I going to find that this is copy-pasta? I'm going to make a wild guess and say yes, since it has little to do with the post it replied to.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I'm do more Java development, but that sounds more like bad design than .NET's fault.
Why are you creating so much garbage that it takes tens or hundreds of milliseconds to resolve?
One severe hit by the garbage collector or the kernel swapping out and you have the problem. You cannot really have a dedicated response time in VM based systems less even in systems with swapping behavior like windows!
Realtime is realtime, everything else is not!
I think an accepted short form would be MSFT.
Stop! Dremel time!
Several times per day the garbage collector will STOP ALL YOUR THREADS to do it's job.
Seriously? I think the first concurrent garbage collection algorithms were published in the '70s, but I could be a decade late. Scan the literature and you'll find a number of high-performance parallel algorithms that don't require stopping any threads, although they do require memory barriers. There are few reason to implement a single-thread GC these days. For a few applications it makes sense, because a single-threaded app with a synchronous GC can be faster than a single-threaded app with a concurrent GC, but for general-purpose use it would be crazy to implement that kind of algorithm now.
Nowadays, you have lots of firms, funds and banks using algorithmic trade.
And if you look at Cincom's customer list for their Smalltalk implementation, you will see quite a few of the successful ones. Odd that C# can't do the job when Smalltalk can...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
No, it's Microsoft vs GNU/Linux.
No, no. MS....FTW !
Squirrel!
I'm surprised that you don't mention that M$ is an MS-Basic thing : A string variable called 'M$'.
It seems very fitting to me. Micro$oft is obviously a point of view, but M$ is a quick identifier (kind of like $user can be easily understood too).
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.
Sort of OT, but doesn't the above describe the way people in finance generally get jobs in the first place? It seems the finance industry is more clique than quant, which would explain why so many funds blow up and why mutual fund returns generally suck. It doesn't surprise me at all that fund managers would hire a dolt CTO with a degree from Harvard instead of a great one with a degree from Georgia Tech, for example.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Andersen Consulting split from Arthur Andersen (mainly accounting/auditing) years ago. The reason for the rename from Andersen Consulting to Accenture was to completely remove the ambiguity about relations between the two companies. (Incidentally the remaining Arthur Andersen also started up a consulting group!) The people involved with Enron were Arthur Andersen (accounting/auditing) and they did go bust afterwards because no one would do business with them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture
No, no. MS....FTW !
Correct. No MS, FTW!
These articles refer to MDDS, which is the platform used to distribute trade data, not to execute trades itself.
LSE is not even big comparing to US equity markets. I would even say small. Their data flow is about one tenth of that of Nasdaq. The number of traded issues is a tiny fraction of number of US issues too.
And yet they have absolutely horrible latencies of order entry interfaces comparing to what's 'normal' for US electronic trading venues.
Their TradElect platform even lacks proper timestamps on Level2 market data messages. On top of that wire format description is afair ~700 pages long. Compare it to Nasdaq spec - 12 (used to be 4) pages for market data interface, about 20 for order entry.
It's clear that LSE is one tangled mess - and the reason for it was a monopoly on trading British names and other listed securities. Now with MiFid EU directive in place they do not longer have that cushion.
So do not blame Windows - blame inept management and their boneheaded decisions.
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 )
If the replacement system uses C# and Mono there is still hope for Microsoft!
In the 25+ years I've been in the Software industry, I've heard this over and over again.
Meaning that buying M$ products was always a safe bet in terms of job security. Apparently that is no longer true. This is the real story here.
Anonymous Coward posting rabid pro-MS bold font on Slashdot. How is the weather in Redmond? /.
Sorry you got stuck with this crap job of FUDing on
The system you described probably does in fact exist inside of NASDAQ, although you can't be certain because they make no mention of MDDS whatsoever on their website. Go ahead and search for it at www.nasdaq.com. In fact, search for it on Google as well, you get citations only from microsoft.com, msn.com, and windowsfs.com. Now try searching for SuperMontage, or TIBCO and NASDAQ, you will get the phone book.
You honestly think NASDAQs quote matching system's back-end is a SQL server???
As for your "99.999% uptime" claim, that claim is made by NASDAQ for NASDAQ trading, not for MDDS which they do not even mention or market. So there is no proof that the SQL server cluster trumpeted only by MS, MSN.com, and windowsfs.com has 99.999% uptime. Try again.
Your sources are Microsoft, MSN, and a website/magazine about windows funded by Microsoft. The Iranian national news service couldn't be more biased than that.
Question #1: Did I state any differently? DO MY SOURCE ARTICLE STATE DIFFERENTLY?? IF SO, show us WHERE on each account noted, thanks??
Do you state it? No. Do you imply it? Very much so. Which brings us to the next point...
AND
Question #2: - DO my sources show that Windows can & DOES do 99.999% uptime in a high tpm environs (complete w/ transactions rates figures & when/where etc. et al)??
No. They don't. Please feel free to show where they state that. Read carefully. You've given us a string of links that sure IMPLY that though. And that isn't the same thing.
The NASDAQ exchange has 99.999% uptime. It is running SuperMontage (proprietary RTOS developed by NASDAQ) and TIBCO (proprietary OS & Middlewary developed by TIBCO).
MDDS is not the exchange, it is a reporting system tacked onto a reporting system.
"MDDS receives direct feeds from NASDAQÃ(TM)s trade reporting system, and collects the data, storing it in SQL Server 2005."
Some tiny 4 node SQL server installation running 100K transactions per day is not the same as the NASDAQ stock exchange system running 3-5 billiion trades per day.
Again, I am sorry your bosses at Microsoft assigned you the task of spinning the crash & burn of the LSE system. Hope the rest of your 4th of July weekend is better.
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.
The GC algorithm doesn't really matter. As soon as you need dedicated real-time style control over how the memory allocations are done, then a managed language sucks. Real-time people ban the use of malloc in certain segments of code for a reason. The programmer must take control over memory allocations for really high-performance code. It is just the way it is.
Your quote from NASDAQ.com talks about NASDAQ trading services uptime, not about MDDS uptime. MDDS != NASDAQ trading service no matter how much you wish it to be. Let me quote from the NASDAQ article:
"Avergage daily matched volume in all U.S. securities was 2.2 billion shares, a 13% increase over May 2008."
The 4 node installation of MDDS can process 100,000 transactions per day, so where are the other two billion one hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred thousand transactions coming from?
Now that your pathetic attempt to conflate NASDAQ trading system uptime with MDDS uptime has been dispelled, that leaves you with 3 microsoft articles saying how great windows is. Congratulations, you have passed your M$ marketing shill certification program.
NASDAQ does not mention MDDS anywhere on their website that I could find. Please find a page served by nasdaq.com that mentions they even sell MDDS to anyone, I could find no mention of anyone who buys or receives the MDDS service anywhere.
If you ask me I blame the fact they were using HP servers. Wheres a photoshopped picture of a guy with his head up his own arse when you need one? HP has got to be the worst experience I have ever had with anything that wasnt a printer (and even then their printer driver update system is laughably buggy). Go ahead and blame windows all you want. But dont forget to ALSO blame crappy HP hardware. They cant make anything resembling good regular desktops or laptops why would you trust their servers?
And this has been another installament of Captain Obvious!
There is a reason for people, especially programmers, to bash Microsoft.
.Net timers are so much a joke that I always invoke the Windows timer instead. The problem with the .Net timer is that it might never fire and there is no way you can guarantee that it fires. If I remember correctly, if the computer is too busy when the timer is supposed to fire the timer just gets dropped instead of firing as soon as it can after the time it was supposed to.
We write programs to run on Windows. Windows has various APIs that we are supposed to be able to use and just trust that they will work properly.
The problem is they don't just work. Winsock for the longest time, maybe still, had so many bugs in it that you had to do so much much error checking that on any other platform would have been ridiculous overkill.
Directsound API had a known bug that after loading a sound into memory you had to make sure to check that it was actually there just before playing it because sometimes Windows would just loose track of where that sound was, so you had to load it again, and don't forget to check it again before playing because Windows might have already lost it again.
The multimedia timer hasn't worked since the Windows 9x days. Then the
Then you have API hell. Microsoft is constantly coming out with new APIs to do the same thing as APIs that already exist. Trying to figure out which API is the newest and should be used is difficult. Sometimes the new API has been deprecated and they suggest using one of the older APIs. It's really hard to tell at times.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
...we need somebody to do a Super Size Me-esque documentary on how badly Microsoft has failed the world.
There was a SIGNATURE here, but it's gone now.
You said I implied something other than this -> NASDAQ has maintained the "fabled '5-9's" of 99.999% uptime on Windows Server 2003 + SQLServer 2005 (in failover clusters) since late 2005, acting as the official dissemination system of official trade data
Exactly. That's what you're implying. That what your links imply. That is not, however, what those links state.
I am not implying anything, I said what I said above in bold, & that's that - you had best prove your accusations of me implying anything.
From the article... 99.999% uptime @ 5k - 10k tpm rates on Windows Server 2003 + SQLServer 2005, acting as the official trade data dissemination system.
Great. Show me the article saying that Windows Server 2003 + SQLServer 2005 with failover clusters accounts for their 99.999% uptime figure. Show me the article saying that the official trade data dissemination system has a 99.999% up time. You have that 5 9's figure. But it doesn't say anything about what system(s) are being considered for the blurb.
Apologies Andr T. I fucked up, it wasn't meant for you.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So Amazon, Google, Yahoo, NYSE, and so on choose bsd, linux, or solaris, with good reason. While LSE managers apparently think that the OS that they run on their desktop for word processing is up to the task of running an exchange because, well... why not, they use it all day long!
"Wall Street Embraces Linux" : http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/27/0327linux.html
"NYSE Moves to Linux" (from UNIX): http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/14/2312210
Microsoft annoys me as much as the next guy, but blame where blame is due please...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Once again - a wall of text that says nothing. Here, let me do you a favor and quote your own source:
In an environment when milliseconds matter and best ex is paramount, firms shouldn't trust in anything less that the most reliable trading platform. NASDAQ is renowned for its high performance technology and has proven reliability with 99.999+% uptime. Whatâ(TM)s more, firms count on NASDAQ for unsurpassed speed and tested capacity to execute trades quickly and efficiently.
Now if you can show me where it notes what they're talking about beyond "high performance technology", we might be able to clear this up. I'm especially interested where it mentions Microsoft products. Or even MDSS.
Here's a troublesome detail for you. The closest that source comes to mentioning a specific system is "the most reliable trading platform." And since we've already established that MDSS isn't a trading platform, it doesn't look like this has anything to do with your topic. Of course, who knows? The blurb gives no details as to what they're referring to. What systems? What qualifications? What the heck does that number mean other than a nice little marketing blurb?
You claim that people are attacking you and not your data. Yet you refuse to admit your data is lacking. You've drawn conclusions that have no justification despite all your name-calling and creative formating.
You want to prove your point? Come up with better data.
And as an aside - I don't have to put words in your mouth. You're doing a fine enough job on your own.
Another wall of text. Less bold text. But still the same name calling. And still side-stepping the fact that the "99.999%" number means nothing as it can't be attributed directly to anything.
Your data is flawed and you can't avoid it no matter how much conversational hand-waving you do. But hey - don't let me stop you. Copy and paste another few paragraphs from your other posts and ignore the fact that your data has, in fact, been challenged and is suspect.
Saves them money too & replaced a mainframe. Perfectly... that means @ LEAST 99.999% uptime, to go along w/ NASDAQTRADER stating NASDAQ is a 99.999% uptime operation, as a whole, that is exactly what they are, each system is a part.
You're saying they're at 99.999% uptime as a whole - but that's not what your quote says. It waves out there a 5 9's figure but doesn't qualify it with any details. Who knows what that refers to?
You WANT it to refer to your argument. But there's nothing that says it does. You even go so far as using the word "perfect" as a metric. Hey - why not? You're making up things already. You might as well go for the gusto.
But please - keep posting your walls of text full of misdirection and name-calling. Then say that I'm running from the questions (and posting information that I never posted while saying I'm putting words in your mouth). The irony is wonderful.
You see - in real enterprise environments, we use quantifiable numbers as metrics. Words like "perfect" are marketing weasel words or one-off generalizations. But please, don't let that shake you from your delusions. Go ahead and use that quote as proof to bolster your argument. It speaks volumes about where you're coming from.
It also highlights the fact that you're desperate to find something to replace the 5 9's quote that has failed to support your argument.
Even though I'm certainly not a fan of Microsoft, I have to say that it's probably possible to create a working solution using those tools.
However the big problem is that there are tools attracting bad programmers and admins. For example most Windows admins know very little about their system, because it seems you can live without it. Another example is PHP, it looks so simple people don't care about what they are doing. The result is insecure code. It's simmilar with C or C++, just ask around how many programmers believe integer overflows or buffer overflows are not a serious problem.
So Microsoft's fault is that they attract idiots and keep people dumb.
As soon as I read the article and found out Accenture was responsible, my immediate reaction was, 'Well of course the implementation was a disaster!' The 'consultants' at Accenture couldn't implement their way out of a clown costume.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
So now that you can't show that the 99.999% statistic is meaningful, you've gone on to grasping for 100% uptime. Seriously - 100% uptime? Why not? Go for broke.
And thanks for proving my point.
That's extremely unlikely.
Indeed, I was to tired to be posting replies.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
>It's not Windows vs Linux.
>It's TradElect vs MarketPrizm, which happen to run on Windows vs Linux respectively.
Bank is having problems with its IVRs (strange slowdown in the software). The first thing they do in troubleshooting is... You can guess, don't be shy... R-r-right: they turn off their anti-virus! (Real problem was: logging system was adding 3 new files per minute, not per second! - into the same directory, Windows can't handle such an abuse for long).
But think about it: trouble? turn off antivirus, now!
Do you see the picture? You can't run mission critical applications WITHOUT anti-virus on Windows: too risky. And you can't run mission critical applications on Windows WITH anti-virus: the anti-virus will cause you problems sooner than later.
So, you can write a better application for Windows than some application for Linux, sure. But you will not have a platform to run it.
I guess that you make your money from Windows development and do not have the faintest when it comes to any other OS tech. My advice to you is to broaden your horizons.
Don't make your problems my problems!
rm -R /TradeElect /Windows
rm -R
mkdir /Linux
Don't make your problems my problems!
I provided links proving the adequacy of *nix for high transaction volume applications. If MS was boasting of the LSE as their proof of MS+.NET+MSSQL adequacy in this arena, until it failed, then some alternative successful use cases should be provided, otherwise "The OS is irrelevant" is at best a straw dog considering it leaves out two of the three technologies, or at worst just wishful thinking.
PS. Your "THIS" link made a good point about MS fanboys and shills (are you one?) trying to control the way that MS is referred to in these discussions. That person wants us to use their stock ticker. That's pathetic. And, actually I'm 8.
First, anyone else notice the obvious issue of this application STILL USING SQL 2000, which reached end of regular maintenance nearly a year ago (Aug 4, 2008)? Seems to me that if this system was structured such that they couldn't easily move to SQL 2005 with Microsoft on the team building this solution, then it may not just be about the stack, but what was done to the technical platform (DBMS, OS, servers, even SAN) to tweak it to reach the performance service levels required. In short, it really is as much about the platform as the application - for this kind of system, you really can't separate the two. As such, a key ownership issue for anyone using MS software as their technical platform is the software lifecycle and maintenance requirement. I can certainly understand why a "2007 go-live" of this system meant they couldn't move to SQL 2005 at that time; but inherent in selecting SQLServer as the DBMS here was the acceptance by the LSE of the MS software cycle - and the need to upgrade in the next 24 months or so. SQL Server 2000 is now an 8 1/2 year old product; even with extended maintenance, I would not view it as suitable for use with something as important as a Stock Exchange. At the very least, I wonder if a combination of Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 for x64-based servers might be better able to address some of the performance issues here. Finally, I also wonder how much the LSE likes "Patch Tuesdays", especially when Microsoft releases OS and SQL Server (and even .NET) patches with "critical" status - meaning apply immediately. I bet that's lots of fun.
Secondly, I wonder about this being "a system of one". While Linux may not be quite up to the various commercial UNIX platforms in terms of robustness (don't shoot me; this is based on experience, and the gap is shrinking), using Linux and the tools common to both Linux and UNIX platforms - which have a very long (15-25 years) and evolved history together - means there are likely other solutions that are comparable to a Stock Exchange that could be used for "lessons learned" and leveraging for an understanding of how to build this application right. In this case, however, we are talking about a fairly new technical stack - Windows 2003 Server (2004 stability), SQL 2000 DBMS (2002 stability), .NET (how many versions since initial release? 3.5 now?), etc. - being used to create a new ground-up custom design. So choosing the MS stack for this also leads to a "vertical isolation" issue - given the relative newness of the tools, and the limited number of similar examples to draw from, does the choice of a platform here also make it more likely that addressing problems that come up would be more difficult? I know - a "chicken vs egg" conundrum - but this is a real concern, and one of the reasons why MS should share responsibility here with Accenture. Based on reading the 2007 press release, the LSE was apparently to become an example to the world of how the MS stack and commodity (HP) WIntel platforms could do the job that used to require Mainframes, VAXes, Tandems, or big UNIX servers. But as an earlier post has suggested, mainframes still exist for a good reason - 40+ years of experience running these kinds of workloads for specific industries requiring very high transaction volumes. I am not saying the MS technical stack won't eventually be able to run this kind of workload, but you can't shortcut the process of learning what it takes to achieve the performance and robustness required here, at least in my opinion.
For example, using SQL Server insures that you MUST use Windows Server as your OS in any event; Oracle, DB2, or even a custom solution could be placed on a number of different platforms that might have provided the ability to create a "hybrid" solution of Windows/.NET front-ends running against a UNIX/Linux (Oracle RAC?) or even Mainframe/DB2 back-end. So no using "the best of both worlds" either. This means having to learn the hard way how to scale up a SQL Server 2000 DBM
Why don't you two AC's get a room? We're trying to talk here.
Congratulations. You've found some people willing to claim 99.999% uptime for systems using Microsoft tech. Pity none of them have anything to do with NASDAQ.
I know. You presented evidence that "finally" backed your claim for MDDS. But if you download the Powerpoint presentation, you'll see that all that the text you copied are actually several blurbs associated with four distinct systems. The 99.999% comes from MSC, not NASDAQ.
Nobody who's reading this should be surprised. Your irrefutable evidence so far has been anything but. You're either not paying attention to what's being said here or you're trying to mislead everyone who doesn't take the time to look at your "evidence".
But that won't be the final word. By the end of the day, we'll see another wall of text. We'll see more twisting of words. We'll see more name-calling and ludicrous claims. We might even see some new links as you desperately Google (or do you Bing?) for something to shore up your failed argument from the beginning of this thread (and your challenge to debate the "facts" and not make personal attacks against yourself - rules that don't apply to you it seems).
But at the end of that day, we'll also see you for what you are; hot air. After nearly a dozen posts, it is very clear that your arguments are suspect. You've played this game before and probably will again. Maybe next time you'll actually do some fact checking yourself.
I love MS bashing as much as the rest of you, however the way I heard it was that it was a network issue. I work closely with the JSE, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, who happen to run on LSE's infrastructure. I heard that the root cause had to do with badly handled UDP packets in a cisco router, that had been patched the previous week-end.
RTFM is not a radio station.
QUESTION #1: CAN you PROVE THAT NASDAQ IS NOT EXPERIENCING 99.999% UPTIME USING SQLSERVER 2005 + WINDOWS SERVER 2003 IN THE OFFICIAL TRADE DATA DISSEMINATION SYSTEM @ NASDAQ?
After all - You said it could not, I provided documented proof it does, as well as testimonials of PERFECT OPERATION by Ken Richmond above also - who do YOU think you are fooling by this point?
Can I prove it? No. And neither can you. That's the point. You claim otherwise. You harp about this word "perfect" as if it was a metric. But it isn't. And nothing else you've brought forward is proof. You've attempted to distract from your origional claim - and these 5 9's quotes are more distractions; they have nothing to do with the NASDAQ systems in question.
I never said the statistic wasn't possible. What I did was question your data. And I've done that despite your attempts to twist things to appear otherwise. And despite your apparent ire that someone would dare point out your mistakes.
As an aside, I also can not prove unicorns do not exist. Please feel free to count proving unicorns exist as another of your victories.
QUESTION #2: Does any other system do the job @ NASDAQ that THE OFFICIAL TRADE DATA DISSEMINATION SYSTEM does?
A nice attempt to distract from the fact that your data is flawed. I've never argued that any given system does or does not do it's "job".
P.S.=> Quit running troll - answer the 2 questions above, instead of avoiding them (& prove SQLServer cannot & does not do 99.999% uptime @ any of these locations, as the "burden of proof" is now on YOU) as you have been, running like a scared girl, or something... lol! apk
At this point, I have to wonder if you have me confused with someone else. It would explain your meandering and name-calling. Although given that your "data" exposes a certain amount of delusion, I couldn't be sure.
And once again, you've proven my point. But please - do continue congratulating yourself for winning the good fight with the "trolls". I'm sure the unicorns will forever cheer your name.
The "NASDAQ" evidence is not NASDAQ but another company. Anyone interested in these sources should go and download the original Powerpoint slides and see where the HTML version fails to demonstrate this. All the other links have nothing to do with NASDAQ.
APK has done a marvelous job at attempting to mislead everyone involved. He's put out numbers and "data", challenging everyone who would disagree with him to take on his data. When his data is proven to not support his conclusions, he ignores the criticisms and resorts to the very same personal attacks he challenges everyone to avoid. He's even gone so far as to post this very post all over this thread. It would appear he subscribes to the belief that if you say something enough times, it becomes truth.
Of course, like any delusional individual facing a challenge to their beliefs, we will see denial in the form of a follow on post from APK claiming victory. It is impossible to reason with a zealot; even a Microsoft zealot (but on the plus side, I've picked up a stalker!).
And once again, you've proven my point. Thanks APK. :)
That card sounds like BloombergAnywhere - bloomberg is just a market data provider, and they use this to make sure one account can be used only by one user, but at any machine of their choice. That one has nothing to do with security as such, just access control to a paid service (though I'm sure he has plenty security measures as well).
Latency is for algorithmic trading, where the human trader just monitors the parameters, and it's the algo that takes in the market price feed and immediately responds with orders. It's enough if the latency of the *GUI layer* including workstation OS is under 100ms or so because the latency of the human response dominates that anyway.
I mean, seriously, that's worse than pathetic! You can make stable systems on ANY platform as long as you plan for things to go wrong.
After all, fault tolerance for mission critical systems should be at the application level for the most part. Doing it at the system level makes you entirely dependent on the system itself remaining stable.
It sounds more likely that the developers who made the system were run of the mill "I made a calculator in C#, I'm a real programmer now!" types. You find these guys in any language.
In systems like this, if you have to use SQL, the use Oracle on whatever system Oracle delivers on. Make it redundant as hell, make at least several fail-over paths and if the UI is web based, then load balance with fail-over across at least 10 servers. No single byte of data should exist on any ONE machine, it should be duplicated/mirrored to hell and back.
At this level, it makes absolutely no difference what platform you're running on, in fact, running a Java platform on Windows AND Linux (or another Unix) should be a minimum so that when operating specific bugs pop up, fail over would keep things running on the system which doesn't have the bug.
Did you even read your own post (assuming you're the same AC, that is...)?
According to your first post:
on Windows Server 2003 + SQLServer 2005 (in failover clusters) since late 2005
How is using the the end of June as a starting point fair, when your post itself says the latter part of the year?
Especially since SQL Server 2005 wasn't even released until November 7, 2005.
Your post's subject also claimed that:
NASDAQ going on 5++ yrs. stable on Windows
Then when I called you on it, you changed that to 4++ years, which you supported with completely bogus math.
The earliest possible date for 4 years on Windows would be Nov 7, 2009. As of now, we're less than 4 years.
So, I repeat my question:
Been doing your calculations on Excel?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I certainly got under your skin, didn't I? I guess it hard to handle when you've been proven wrong. But just for giggles, I'll show you the error of your ways once more.
You can't find a reference that shows this MDDS system maintains 5 9's. So now you're hung up on this quote that includes the word "perfectly". You seem to really think that this is vindication. The problem is, it doesn't have any meaning in this context. If I provided a client or employeer an availability report that claimed "perfect", I'd be asked for the numbers. You yourself have claimed that "perfectly" means both 99.999% and 100% (100% availability is laughable). "Perfectly" is not a metric. But do go ahead and keep clutching to the word if you want; it just shows off your ignorance.
The next point is even more interesting. You quote "enterprise availability" and then start providing supposed definitions for "high availability." This is why I question your reading comprehension. Two two phrases are different. Yet you desperately link them with nothing but your own words.
"Enterprise availability" has no real meaning. It's a nice term for general conversation and marketing brochures. Little wonder that you found it in marketing documentation.
"High availability" is more meaningful. But it's a pity you didn't pay attention to the Wikipedia article you linked to. If you did, you'd notice that not only do they list 99.999% but the scale goes from 80% to 99.9999% (and the outage calculations to get those figures). All the other references to "high availability" and "99.999%" are simply specifying what degree of high availability the person is talking about. It's good background information. But hardly "data" to back up your 5 9's claim.
As an aside, "uptime" and "availability" aren't always the same thing. Uptime can affect availability. But availability metrics won't always show you uptime. I suggest you go back to read that Wikipedia article to find out why. You might learn something.
Finally, let's talk about the putting words in your mouth issue. If we go back to the root of this thread, we'll notice the original poster was talking about trading systems. You responded to them with some links about MDDS. My contention is that you intentionally tried to mislead everyone in to thinking MDDS was a counter-example of a successful trading system. You don't SAY that you think MDDS is a trading system. But posting information about MDDS as a counter-example with no qualifications sure implies it. Whether this is an honest mistake on your part or not is a difficult call to make. But it does fall in line with all your other leaps in logic and sporadic non-data - I just honestly can't tell if you're being clueless or dishonest.
The problem apk is that I answer your questions and you ignore the answers. Then you come up with new questions. Often the questions are as irrelevant as the "data".
At the end of several days, you've yet to provide solid proof that this MDDS system does 5 9's. Which isn't even addressing the fact that this system has nothing to do with trades which is the actual topic at hand. Your entire argument is a shambles despite all your best hand-waving to divert attention from it.
The entire thread looks like I'm talking to a bizarre mix of Eliza and a 5 year old. It just keeps re-hashing the same text and logical fallacies again and again (with a fare amount of temper tantrums thrown in). If this is the sum of your expertise after over 16 years of professional experience and being an author, then this is an even more sad display than it already is on it's face.
Continue trying to prove your unicorns exist by demanding proof that they don't, apk. I've given up showing you the faults you are either oblivious or willfully ignorant of. Try not to let the fact that your argument has been challenged get under your skin too much - one of these days you're going to have to let go.