London Stock Exchange dumps Windows for Linux

Computerworld ^ | October 7, 2009 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[Willie Green]

When it comes to business computer systems, nothing is more mission-critical than the massive trading software systems that underlie stock markets. A failure of an hour here can mean billions of dollars of lost trades. The LSE (London Stock Exchange) learned that the hard way when their .NET/Windows Server 2003 trading platform died like a dog early last September. The new LSE management is not going make that mistake again. This October, the LSE purchased MillenniumIT and will be switching its stock exchange programs to the company's Linux-based Millennium Exchange software.

I saw this move coming. While the LSE never officially announced that its Windows and .NET stock trade software TradElect was the root of its September failure and perpetually slow performance, it was an open secret in the City -- London's equivalent to America's Wall Street -- that that was the case. Indeed, it was this technology flop that lead to the LSE CEO Clara Furse leaving the Exchange in July. The new CEO, Xavier Rolet, immediately decided to get rid of TradElect and started shopping for other platforms.

Friends of mine in the City tell me that the LSE immediately started considering a Linux-based solution. It doesn't take a genius to see why. The world's fastest stock exchanges, like New York's International Security Exchange, run on Linux. In a world of high-frequency trading where a millisecond really can mean the difference between profit and loss, stock exchanges can't afford to be slow, never mind actually going off-line.

[rabscuttle385]

*Ping!*

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

The thought of a stock exchange running on Windows is scary in and of itself. And I’m a windows user!

[Marine_Uncle]

Nice to see they wised up.

[ikka]

Good to know they won’t be getting the “Blue Stock Exchange of Death” screen on their trading workstations anymore...

[ShadowAce]

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I wonder if the kernel is One from Linus Torvalds...or one from BSD?

Or if Canonical , Red Hat,, Novell are providing any support...or could be IBM...

Would be interesting to have some underlying detail...

[BunnySlippers]

BUMP

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OK found this:

London Stock Exchange platform acquisition ignites open source war of words

**************************************EXCERPT******************************

Sep 18, 2009, 15 :06 UTC (4 Talkback[s]) (3562 reads)

"The core MillenniumIT product, Millennium Exchange, runs on Linux and Unix environments with an Oracle database, rather than within a Microsoft architecture.

"Last year the London Stock Exchange experienced a seven hour outage owing to a network software problem. Details of what went wrong remain unclear but Computerworld UK readers questioned the Microsoft software in place at the exchange."

Complete Story

[DesertSapper]

I used AIX, Solaris, a couple of Linux builds, and HPUX for years (though thankfully not for the last 3 yrs). All tend to be MUCH more stable than Windows of any flavor. However, if anyone believes Unix/Linux systems don’t crash, they obviously don’t know much about operating systems. I’ve had some really nasty, time consuming, application killing Unix/Linux-based system crashes.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

from the article...see link at #9:

*************************EXCERPT*******************************

Just three weeks ago, German stock exchange Deutsche Borse moved to Linux environments with IBM messaging. IBM was quick to point out that specialist electronic exchange Chi-X, one of the fastest exchanges in Europe, runs on Linux and is also adding IBM messaging under a deal announced today.

[Marine_Uncle]

Good questions. As I wade through ask.com responses to search box MillenniumIT, I find no answer other then their corporate site does indicated their partnership with Sun Microsystems and Oracle.
If Sun is their key hardware integrator most likely the particular Linux distributions will be limited. As I write this to you I keep trying different search phrases to get the answer. No success at this point.

[martin_fierro]

FLASH!

THIS JUST IN!!!

London Stock Exchange dumps Windows for Linux, then dumps Linux for 0bama!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Solarius in the mix somewhere...it is more mature and has some of the internals that you would expect to see in IBM Main Frame classical operating systems....MVS ,...SMF,...debugging ,... traces ...load balancing...etc

At least as I understand it...but I have been away from all of that for lots of years.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

WAWAWAW....this is a serious conversation...besides...how is Obama peaceful when he just

BOMBED THE MOON????

[copaliscrossing]

Our company is looking at options for replacing our current software package and anything we look at has to run on a UNIX variant. If all you have is Windows based, it is a non-starter. PERIOD!

[tacticalogic]

Our company is looking at options for replacing our current software package and anything we look at has to run on a UNIX variant. If all you have is Windows based, it is a non-starter. PERIOD!

What are you using for email?

[Marine_Uncle]

I think you may be right. The underlining ops is apparently being restricted to UNIX and variants. MVS. SMF, geez through in Honeywell Main frame TSS. I can sit back and run through images as I used to right RJE code to allow huge database table transfers between the UNIX systems I used Informix Database engine and tools on, and a IBM MVS system that held a gigantic hierarchial database we used to access using RAMIS tools, that I rebuilt on the UNIX side using of course the Informix Relational model engine.
I often have talked down IBM, when compared in shear versatility of UNIX systems, but must admit I depended on IBM and Honeywell mainframes for many a Integrated Circuit simulation among other things. Then of course our lab got access to the Cray super computer located at Bell Labs HQ in Murray Hill.
Jobs entered via, the Honeywell mainframe then past onto the Cray took literally seconds, simulations instead of taking many hours and more in some cases....where completed in minutes, with large printouts being available via. screens and or network downloaded print outs.
But I digress. Surely if Sun is the hardware part of this enterprise then Solarius might be a offering. Then again with the huge advances in the Linux kernels, who knows.

[papasmurf]

I really don’t believe there is a BSD Linux kernel.Free BSD offers a compatibility routine for Linux, but that’s the limit of my limited knowledge.

Linux and BSD are, AFAIK, two separate and distinct entities.

I would imagine that LSE had them begin with a bare Linux kernel and build from there to suit their mission and preserve security.

[copaliscrossing]

What are you using for email?

I would have to defer to the group that administers the email and other non-critical systems in our company. I deal with the mission critical part of our system that has to be up 24/7 and that part will be UNIX based. I know that I use a web-based Zimbra product and Thunderbird client for my desktop email.