London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 21, 2010 18:39 UTC (Thu) by woooee (guest, #54179)
In reply to: London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK) by trasz
Parent article: London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Nowhere in the article did it say anything about a MS Windows failure, but instead said things like "TradElect has a troubled history". So they are migrating to another known/tested platform, which happens to be based on Linux. Also, they want to improve speed for real-time trades, which the new platform apparently delivers as well, again no mention of MS Windows.

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 21, 2010 18:45 UTC (Thu) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link] (9 responses)

Wired article about the USS Yorktown didn't say Windows NT failed - they would get sued if they lied like this. What they did - and what is happening here - was constantly highlighting the operating system the software was running under. Nobody remembers who wrote the Smart Ship software - everyone remembers about Windows NT. Same thing in this case here - nobody remembers who made the previous platform, and who makes the new one, but everyone remembers that the faulty one was running under Windows, and the new one runs on Linux.

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 21, 2010 21:04 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (8 responses)

I know who made the previous London Stock Exchange program:

Microsoft did. At least partially.

For customers this huge and opportunities this lucrative you can bet that
Microsoft put a crapload of effort into getting this system up and running
efficiently. LSE used all the star Microsoft technologies that were
available at the time: .NET, Windows 2003, MS SQL, and all that.

I don't know how much anybody here has dealt with Microsoft, but if your a
company deploying Microsoft solutions they will actually be devote quite a
bit time to you. Have their engineers work with your software guys to port
software and will even fly people out to work with you.

And that is just for a relatively small company. For something like the LSE
you can definitely bet that Microsoft pretty much had several employees
devoted nearly full time specifically to making that work. Both with the
software developers and the administrators who deployed it.

This is actually one of the nice points about Microsoft. If your using
their stuff and your running into problems they are not going to let you
twist in the wind; as long as your a big enough customer (of course).

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 21, 2010 21:52 UTC (Thu) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link] (7 responses)

Go read TheDailyWTF.com. 90% of these cases happened in Windows environment. Most of the companies involved could easily get support from Microsoft. There is nothing Microsoft can do if the company employs a bunch of morons.

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 21, 2010 23:20 UTC (Thu) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

Microsoft put the London Stock Exchange up on its website as a case study.

http://switch.atdmt.com/action/FY07_Linux_LSE_Download

Would they really have done that if they thought the Accenture / TradElect guys were "a bunch of morons?"

> Go read TheDailyWTF.com. 90% of these cases happened in Windows environment

Maybe that's because smarter programmers prefer to use other platforms? Hmm, no, can't be. Must be another giant conspiracy.

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 22, 2010 1:37 UTC (Fri) by leoc (guest, #39773) [Link] (3 responses)

"There is nothing Microsoft can do if the company employs a bunch of morons."

Hate to be the one to break this to you, but Microsoft was heavily involved in all aspects of the LSE .NET implementation.

"Working with Microsoft and Accenture, the London Stock Exchange replaced its London Market Information Link (LMIL®) system with Infolect®. It used the Microsoft® .NET Framework, the Microsoft Visual C#® .NET development tool, and the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database." (source, emphasis mine)

"The application is based on Microsoft® .NET and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and was developed in partnership with both Microsoft and Accenture." (source, emphasis mine)

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 22, 2010 11:12 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (2 responses)

This is press-release-speak. It doesn't tell you how much real involvement Microsoft technical people had with the project. It might just as well mean that some marketing guy from Redmond played golf with the Accenture project manager (who can then sound good to his boss by saying he got special help from Microsoft).

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 22, 2010 18:32 UTC (Fri) by leoc (guest, #39773) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't see how us not knowing who did the "real" work benefits them in any way. Even if their only involvement was to spend 5 minutes writing a press release taking credit for the work, it is still their fault when it fails, just as it would be to their credit had it succeeded. Considering the LSE CIO touted his personal relationship with Steve Ballmer while he was dissing Linux, I would be absolutely astonished if Ballmer didn't send every member of the core .NET and Windows develop teams to the LSE when the shit hit the fan.

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 24, 2010 22:26 UTC (Sun) by alextingle (guest, #20593) [Link]

Wow, that article is from 2003 and already it sounds like another world.

One 2003-era CIO said "[our supplier forced us to switch to Linux and] we found we had an additional overhead in understanding the technology and the total cost of ownership has risen." He was obviously influenced by those old "total cost of ownership" ads from Microsoft. You don't hear MS banging on about TCO these days do you?

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 22, 2010 16:14 UTC (Fri) by brianomahoney (guest, #6206) [Link] (1 responses)

Having read the comments on this thread I would politely suggest that you take your appologist comments, FUD and Astroturfing somewhere else.

LWN tries to be factual, and unbiased.

London Stock Exchange begins migration to Linux-based trading platform (ComputerworldUK)

Posted Jan 28, 2010 21:46 UTC (Thu) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link]

I haven't been participating in this thread, but I feel I have to comment here:

> I would politely suggest that you take your appologist comments, FUD and Astroturfing somewhere else. LWN tries to be factual, and unbiased.

And it succeeds, in both cases; not only in the articles, but also, for the most part, in the comment threads. And part of the reason it succeeds in comment threads is the variety views represented by the commenters. There are two sides to every story, and in LWN, you will usually see the 'other' side presented fairly somewhere in the comments (even in stories involving companies viewed by most of the community as 'bad guys', such as Microsoft), if only sometimes by a devil's advocate in order to spark informed discussion. This is a good thing: uniform 'group-think' is the enemy of neutrality.

Anyway, the point of this is that accusing anyone who posts a comment in support of Microsoft of 'astroturfing' (i.e. being paid by Microsoft) is not only probably untrue, but also pretty counter-productive if your goal is informed discussion. Having all sides of the story represented is a good thing, even the sides you don't happen to agree with.