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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
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.
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!
In other news, the London Stock Exchange will shortly be abandoning the pound, as well.
Welcome our smug, bearded, Unix liking overloads.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"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
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."
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'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
No, it's Microsoft vs GNU/Linux.
...Airbus's belief that humans cannot react as quickly to dangerous situations as computers and Boeing's belief that computers cannot make judgments as well as humans in dangerous situations.
I used to work for Boeing. Boeing's IT department is a huge fan of Microsoft products (Possibly due to the proximity. Boeing Commercial HQ is just a chair's throw away from Microsoft). Engineering's decision to provide pilots absolute authority over autopilot functions stems in part from their experience in dealing with Microsoft office systems.
No, no. MS....FTW !
Correct. No MS, FTW!
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 )
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.
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.
...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.
Switzerland scenario != Airbus scenario
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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
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.
You don't really need antivirus on Windows unless you are using the machine as a desktop, or the machine serves arbitrary files (i.e. it's a fileserver, email server etc) in which case the AV is there to protect the users, not the server, and would be just as needed on a linux server.
Either:
1: The infection relies on someone receiving an email or visiting a web site, in which case a server shouldn't be affected.
2: Or it is a vulnerability in a public service on the machine, in which case an anti-virus program won't keep the infection out.
Antivirus isn't as necessary as it used to be, I don't remember the last time I had a positive from my virus scanner. I keep some actually infected files around to test it every so often, so it does still work :)