

London Stock Exchange: What really went wrong - DMPenfold2008
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3263747/london-stock-exchange-what-really-went-wrong/?cmpid=sbycombinatorlking

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Vic-nyc
Short summary of the article. The outage was caused by the introduction of new
requirements by LSE for end-of-day price reporting. The data vendors were the
ones who had the responsibility to adhere to these new rules, by making
changes to their systems. Unfortunately, the "big bang" approach to the
switch-over proved fatal.

From the article:

“I am astonished they did not run the systems in parallel,” said a source at
one of the major data vendors. “At least for a few weeks or months as
necessary.”

The LSE argues that it gave plenty of proper testing and preparation time, and
that the vendors should have been ready. It has been working with them to
resolve the issues.

~~~
mithaler
Why am I reminded of Douglas Adams? "All the planning charts have been on
display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your
Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and
it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now..."

~~~
rbanffy
I seriously doubt the plans were that far away. The transition was not
announced the day before after all.

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trezor
Remember when there were some issues with LSE's Windows-based solution? You
had Linux/FOSS fanboys all over saying that this was obviously the fault of
Windows and what not and that Linux would fare much better.

I'm wondering what sort of response they will have to this and why they
weren't as eager to report this to social news-sites as they were with the
Windows-story.

Maybe this will finally make them realize that shitty (design-)decisions can
be made on any platform and for complex software the underlying OS/kernel
doesn't really matter all that much. We can only hope.

~~~
Stormbringer
What happened with the previous system was that it dragged on for years and
years, with many expensive delays and poor technological decisions. By
contrast, the Linux system is up and running much faster.

So yeah, you can try to spin it as 'Linux is just as bad as Microsoft', but if
one takes 5 years and is a complete disaster, and the other one takes 2 years
and has a few hiccups, I know which one I prefer.

Disclaimer: as far as I could care, Windows and Linux can both go and die in a
fire, so you know I'm neutral :D

\-----

The root cause of the problem the previous one had if I recall correctly was
that they had some CTO come in who didn't know anything except the Microsoft
way of doing things. So, naturally, they ended up picking Microsoft for
everything. Problem is, the Microsoft sales reps promise you the world and
whisper sweet nothings in your ear until you give them your virtue, but once
they have ravished you they roll over and go straight to sleep.

~~~
JonoW
> So yeah, you can try to spin it as 'Linux is just as bad as Microsoft', but
> if one takes 5 years and is a complete disaster, and the other one takes 2
> years and has a few hiccups, I know which one I prefer.

The point being made is that the problems in both the previous and current
systems were probably nothing to do with the underlying OS/platform, but
because of some incompetency in the design or implementation of this specific
project.

