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Comments: 438 +- Technology: London Stock Exchange To Abandon Windows on Friday July 03 2009, @08:24AM
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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 ...'"
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Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Of course I know I wasn't... but cmon!
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Similar at several European banks (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [networkworld.com].
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.
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
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
Ah, so the MS ad servers were running Windows too?
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Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
But, then, it's not often you see enterprise software fail quite so badly and publicly as was the case with the LSE
A quote from another source is appropriate here:
This is a good death. There's no shame in this, in a man's death. A man who has done fine works. We're making a better world. All of them - better worlds.
article:
So, might I suggest to the LSE that they consider Linux as the foundation for their next stock software infrastructure?
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Fun game (Score:4, Funny)
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"
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Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. We run 90% of our mission critical software at work on Windows and don't have problems...but have moved to Linux to run remote monitoring software. Should I make a post saying we're abandoning the horrible crappy Windows market for Linux? That would be just as incorrect of a statement.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Funny)
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
Yeah, but then it wouldn't have made Slashdot!
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not Windows vs Linux.
You say it's not Windows' fault and I agree--it wasn't an OS problem (per se), but rather an application issue. In actuality, it's Microsoft's fault; the application was developed in joint by Accenture AND Microsoft. With the requirements not being met that it be a high-performance, real-time application and the fact that they were unable to deliver even with MS being involved made them lose faith in the company and their products (.NET, Windows Server, SQL server).
I'd say that if MS wasn't involved in the development of the app that it's possible that they would scrap the app rather than the OS/framework, but if I was in that position, I'd do the same thing.
It's possible that they also look at the chicago stock exchange and the NYSE and the fact that their apps are running on Linux and have decided to move to a proven, successful system.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Interesting)
; the application was developed in joint by Accenture AND Microsoft.
"Accenture"? You mean Andersen Consulting? The people that you'd have to be a complete idiot to do business with after the Enron disaster?
-jcr
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Accenture"? You mean Andersen Consulting? The people that you'd have to be a complete idiot to do business with after the Enron disaster?
I'm can't say that I'm familiar with what involvement they had with Enron, but I've had a half-dozen friends who have worked at Accenture and from what I know of them, they do pretty good work usually.
The key point is that MS was involved with development. Several people I've talked to about this article have said ".NET is NOT ready for enterprise applications of this sca
Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Informative)
I worked for Accenture in one of the "delivery centres" in the Eastern Europe and it was total crap. They hired 1st and 2nd year students for peanuts, and sold them as professionals to rich foreign companies. The turnover of staff was about a third - after one learned something, it was best to get out of there as soon as possible. From the posts on the glassdoor i can infer that this is the strategy accenture employs worldwide.
accenture just sucks.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked for Accenture in one of the "delivery centres" in the Eastern Europe and it was total crap. They hired 1st and 2nd year students for peanuts, and sold them as professionals to rich foreign companies. The turnover of staff was about a third - after one learned something, it was best to get out of there as soon as possible. From the posts on the glassdoor i can infer that this is the strategy accenture employs worldwide.
I've heard the same story from friends who worked for Accenture in São Paulo, Brazil (Accenture's largest office in South America). My former bosses also worked for Accenture soon after graduating with engineering degrees.
Accenture's usual technique is to hire students or recent graduates from technical fields, who are reasonably capable in programming and computer science but know absolutely nothing about the consulting problems at hand or the software platforms which they use. Accenture gives them a weekend's notice before allocating them in real world projects they were not trained to do. These employees are overworked, underpaid, deliver substandard services and most end up quitting after one or two years. The few who don't quit and aren't complete morons get promoted.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:4, Informative)
I have to side with the "accenture is worse than incompetent" crowd.
I know of one project they worked on for the University of Minnesota redoing their financial system that they fucked up completely. I've a friend who was in the periphery of the project (he knew some of the key developers) and saw it all coming. They hire monkeys to produce documentation, and produce complete garbage code. They actually had to fire some people because they discovered they were never at their desk, but produced code. It was discovered they contracted their own jobs out to someone in India to do.
I also know someone who had to work with the "finished" product when it was first roled out, and it was a complete train wreck. (Think magic formulas and tea leaves to get what you need done). It's still largely a train wreck a year later, people have just gotten used to the train wreck.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always believed that Microsoft don't really get mission critical software so I'm surprised they got the contract. My experience with their OSs suggests that time and time again they fail to get the basics right or that things just work superficially. They cover this up by submerging it in a slopping sea of unwanted bloaty features.
What this implies is that they must have damned good sales executives to overcome the word on the street.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, TradElect was written by Microsoft and Accenture [onwindows.com], so Microsoft where heavily involved in this project themselves - not just from the perspective of Windows only.
In addition, they touted this in their "Get The Facts" anti-Linux campaign, so I'm sorry, but pointing out this failure and blaming it on Microsoft (though perhaps not the Windows OS as such) is fair game IMO.
I mean, if a large and well-known consulting firm together with Microsoft themselves can't make a Windows-based framework perform, who can?
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
I seriously doubt microsoft was involved in the development of tradelect. marketing in collaboration with accenture yes.
From an old Computer Weekly [computerweekly.com] article
"Accenture built the Tradelect platform in India between late 2004 and March this year."
And from an old information age article [information-age.com], a classic Quote from the now departed IT Director:
"That was where Microsoft came in. We looked at their whole suite of technology from their development environment through to their databases and operating systems, and we decided that their technology was best aligned to achieving this range of design principles. We also found that they were willing to operate as true partners with us and to engage throughout the whole four-year programme rather than on particular components within it where there was potential revenue for them through licence sales. So we felt that not only did their technology stack up against the design principles, but they were genuinely able to act as a partner. They recognised at the most senior levels what we were trying to achieve here and that was important to us."
That's £40m over a short 2 years of service [onwindows.com] - work out the TCO on the depreciation cost alone! So, yes, I do think Microsoft has a lot to answer for because they were engaged at the highest levels. Also, Accenture have a lot to answer for. As soon as I saw "India", well, I'm sorry, but it's rare for an offshore project to meet requirements - in the same way that a project for Bank of India outsourced to the UK would probably fail.
It's worth a look at the Chi-X platform sales brochure [sii.org.uk] (it's PPT, how ironic) which is a direct competitor to LSE and uses Linux successfully. Chi-X has about 15% or so of UK FTSE 100 trades. The amazing feature of CHi-X is its low latency - especially in trading where 20 ms is a very long time and can cost principals serious money.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's Microsoft vs Linux.
Microsoft had full control over the stack of tools they used (Windows Server 2003, C#/.NET, Sql Server 2000, I believe) and they invested a lot of resources, both technical and marketing, into making this system run. It was suppose to show that Microsoft software could handle this kind of system as well or better then *nix. And it was a failure.
See Get the Facts [microsoft.com] for more details.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Interesting)
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are you fucking blind ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
The OS is irrelevant - every modern server OS performs well enough to support sanely written software and sanely designed infrastructure. Only the people living in the past and the ones having no clue will argue otherwise.
Or the ones who don't know what they're talking about, like you.
This is one of the main stock exchanges in the world. Billions of dollars of trade rely on microsecond-precise handling. There are whole companies (and not small ones) that do stuff like inter-exchange trading which is the buzzword for "buy for $1,5678 in London, sell for $1,5679 in Tokyo before anyone else does and the prices equalize". These are companies that are willing to put down five to six digit sums per month if they can get an Internet connection with a few milliseconds less latency.
For this environment, you don't need "sanely managed". Any delay whatsoever in the transactions is bad. Any time a transaction can not be handled properly due to delay, queues or any fucking other reason, one of your traders is unhappy. And you don't want unhappy traders when they are your business.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:5, Informative)
Yes i will second that, responsiveness is one of the most important aspects to traders...
They have special keyboards tailored to their particular trading applications so you can enter trades quicker...
They have dedicated lines between sites because a vpn going over the internet would be slower...
They use unencrypted and often unauthenticated protocols to reduce the overhead.
They intentionally use very short or no passwords so they are quicker to enter...
Security, cost, all secondary factors to the need for low latency.
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Re:Not Windows' fault (Score:4, Insightful)
The point you are missing is that the application is not independent of the operating system. If the operating system does not support, or supports poorly, such features as real time processes, >1 CPU core threading with appropriate parallel locks on IO buffers and channels, O(n) process and thread scheduling, redundant failover, and a thousand other small features, then implementing applications that are high performance, real time, and mission critical, is massively more complex, or even impossible.
What actually runs on the CPU is application+OS user space libraries+kernel+kernel drivers. The performance of the sum total is as dependent on the performance and capabilities of other every bit of the stack as it is on the application itself.
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Thanks. (Score:3, Funny)
This just made my day. Now i can go back to bed.
Thanks!
Two years worth of use (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Two years worth of use (Score:5, Informative)
It was not entirely outsourced to Accenture. It was a joint Acenture Microsoft project. Microsoft was involved at all levels of development, testing, deployment, and support.
As one poster to the SJVN article (Bernard) points out, both Microsoft and LSE confirm Microsoft's complete involvement in the project:
Given Microsoft's history of FUD, their habitual use of paid commentors, or even dead people writing letters, I think we should all sit back and enjoy the spin the paid apologists will have to go through to tell everyone how it wasn't MS's fault.
I bet that link on Microsoft's own site telling hoe closely involved they were in the project won't last through the Holiday weekend! Any takers?
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NASDAQ going on 5++ yrs. stable on Windows (Score:4, Informative)
"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 [windowsfs.com]
&/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/ [sqlauthority.com]
"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] [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 [nasdaqtrader.com]
"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
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MOD PARENT DOWN!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:NASDAQ going on 5++ yrs. stable on Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Clever marketing, but irrelevant. As you note - in passing - this is for the information dissemination system, not for the trading system. It's there so people can do non-real-time-critical look-up of past trades. NASDAQ wouldn't trust their trading system to Windows.
Every trade processed in the NASDAQ marketplace goes through the system
Yes, it goes through the Windows stack after it has been processed by the trading system. Which used to run on a POSIX system on MIPS Tandem hardware [cnet.com] the year after your MDDS system was installed. I can't find anymore recent info even on the NASDAQ site [nasdaqtrader.com].
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Re:NASDAQ going on 5++ yrs. stable on Windows (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Two years worth of use (Score:5, Funny)
We've got a contract with Accenture at work
What company is that? I want to short your stock.
-jcr
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Seems like a bunch of unknowing (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Btw. the same would apply to a blank linux java stack....
You need realtime stuff to do that!
Linux stock exchange systems sucks equaly bad (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the over night batch processing was horrible. Scripts and programs had to be manually started by an operator, then a checkoff sheet had to be signed by the operator. If something happened during execution (fairly common), it had to be restarted by hand, after backing out the failed step. No scheduling package whatsoever. Incredibly manual and error prone.
Come on. TradElect is the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Come on. TradElect is the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that not even Microsoft’s involvement was able to make the system meet its requirements looks *very* indicative to me.
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It's not like MS based is a bad platform... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the articles comments (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Why am I not surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe not Windows fault but sure is Microsoft's (Score:3, Insightful)
From Microsoft's case study http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=200042 [microsoft.com]
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.
Exchange Server (Score:5, Funny)
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Mulitple Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Elementary, my near noob (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a bit confused as to why it's Microsoft getting knocked on the head here. Sure, SQL Server 2000 might not be the best choice, but how are we to know what actually caused the issues? You could write poorly written code anywhere, and outages could well be caused by hardware failure and poor failover planning. To blame it all on the .NET framework seems a bit odd to me, without knowing what was causing all the problems.
Of course, I'm not a big fan of SQL Server databases for huge mission-critical applications (multi-version consistency in TempDB version stores, anyone?).
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Re:Elementary, my near noob (Score:5, Informative)
If I recall correctly, the TradElect platform was pushed by MS as a showcase for its new .NET 1.0 platform, and was written by a whole team (or two) of outsourced developers in this brand new, shiny technology. They ported it to .NET 1.1 but I'm not sure they ever tried to port it to .NET 2.0.
Did I mention it was developed in conjunction with Accenture? Oh, and it was developed by Microsoft itself by all the news reports (though I bet the development was done by cheapest devs Accenture could hire, with a few MS consultants discussing architecture and collecting big fees - it didn't cost $40m in hardware alone!)
So, yes, it could have been poorly written code, but as you say, you can write poor .NET code. It always seemed to me that the project was akin to an 'enterprise java' one of yesteryear - big, slow, over-engineered, poorly developed, resource intensive and generally 'too big to fail'. Seems also that the LSE knows better than to hang on to the worst kind of crappy software and try to make it better.
As for MS bashing, they're the big boy, so they always take the hit. If all software written for MS was great and worked perfectly, we'd worship them as gods. As it is, we continually see problems and give them no slack. If they were a small company trying hard to make a difference, we'd be more forgiving.
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Re:Seems more big bussiness and goverments.... (Score:5, Informative)
...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.
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Re:Crash over Switzerland (Score:5, Insightful)
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