LSE Must Hurry up Migrating to GNU/Linux (Windows Has Just Crashed Again)

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-11-26 18:50:13 UTC
Modified: 2009-11-26 23:17:17 UTC

Summary: The trading system in London suffered another major crash this morning and a permanent GNU/Linux replacement is on its way

THE WINDOWS-BASED London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been a total catastrophe not only to London but also to Microsoft's case study against GNU/Linux. The very same "poster child" Microsoft was bragging about in its smears against GNU/Linux is going to move to GNU/Linux, having abandoned the entire Microsoft stack (following repeated failures [1, 2]).

A report that has arrived just now (several readers alerted us about it) says that LSE went down again. From the BBC:

Trading on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been brought to a halt by technical difficulties.

From IDG (UK):

Technical problems led to the suspension of trading in some FTSE 100 stocks on the London Stock Exchange this morning.

[...]

Last month, the LSE announced it will acquire Sri Lankan trading firm Millennium IT for €£18 million, replacing its Accenture built, Microsoft .Net-based TradElect platform. The new platform is understood to be based on Linux.

Interestingly enough, it was only one day ago that the very same publication released a report titled "London Stock Exchange takes €£20m hit on almost redundant TradElect platform"

As this article clearly shows, the transition to GNU/Linux has not occurred yet.

The often troubled TradElect system remains five times slower than rivals' reported speeds. It was upgraded in 2008 by Accenture at a cost of €£40 million, is based around Microsoft .Net architecture and runs on HP ProLiant servers with Cisco networking technology.

It is due to be replaced at the end of next year by an open source based platform built by MillenniumIT, which the LSE acquired in September for €£18 million.

[...]

The system is aimed at saving the LSE over €£10 million a year from 2012. It will also bring in-house the LSE’s software development, provide “dedicated research and development support”, and offer new revenue streams by selling technology to other financial markets.

Profits at the stock exchange tumbled for the six months by 37 percent to €£79 million. The exchange reiterated that it hopes an ongoing cost cutting exercise and management restructure will save it over €£11 million a year.

The LSE must be relieved this time around because in spite of today's downtime, it is aware that haven is in sight. That haven is GNU/Linux and Free software. A lot of the world uses exactly that for trading platforms and Microsoft's experiment in London failed badly and relatively quickly. The natural conclusion is that Microsoft is not suitable for mission-critical systems. ⬆

"Every time you use Google, you're using a machine running the Linux kernel."

--Chris DiBona, Google

A solemn crowd gathers outside the
Stock Exchange after the crash (1929)

Comments

NotZed

2009-11-26 21:32:48

`epic fail' is a pretty horrible term seemingly borne out of a severe lack of adjectives in modern lingo.

It does however perfectly sum up this situation.

I hope the people involved lost jobs for `choosing Microsoft' on this one. But then again anyone involved in the paper economy seems to be immune from any mistake lately.

Roy Schestowitz

2009-11-26 22:03:08

See: Furse should not resign, she should be sacked

The farce of the London Stock Exchange not only crashing but failing to get its systems up and running again should surprise no one.

Well, no one except LSE boss Clara Furse, who demonstrates little understanding that technology is crucial to her business.

I’ve worked for members of the London Stock Exchange and everyone agrees she is world-class at corporate presentations, but the evidence that she can actually run things is rather harder to come by.

No one expects her to write FIX handlers, or optimise an order-matching engine, but her yes-men simply were not in the position to make any intelligent decisions on technology, if we look at the board of the LSE.

Do we see anything that even looks like experience in technology? No. We see three from the media, and of course accountancy, but no mention of technology.

jocaferro

2009-11-26 22:20:36

Still ""...

The London Stock Exchange needed a scalable, reliable, high-performance, and agile stock exchange ticker plant to replace an outmoded system. About 40 per cent of its revenue comes from selling real-time market data.

Ya, ya...
jocaferro

2009-11-26 22:28:30

Sorry. Still mentioned as a real sucess at "Get the Facts"

Roy Schestowitz

2009-11-26 22:33:01

People eventually got The Facts, but not Microsoft's distorted version of them.

LSE Must Hurry up Migrating to GNU/Linux (Windows Has Just Crashed Again)

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