.Net in the City

[AtW]

London stock exchange switches to Linux

IN THE CITY OF LONDON, the financial heart of the UK, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has begun a twelve-month migration to a Linux based trading system.

By the end of the year it wants the Linux-based MillenniumIT trading platform up and running.

The software was gained by acquiring the Sri Lankan company that developed it for £18 million in September. When it is switched on it will replace the outgoing TradElect platform, which is based on Microsoft's .Net framework and was upgraded by Accenture only two years ago at a cost of £40 million.

The TradElect system has been an embarrassment to the LSE with a number of high profile outages. It is also understood to be significantly slower than specialist rivals such as Chi-X. Just keeping it running over its last year of operation cost the LSE £20 million for patches.

In a press release the LSE told the financial markets that the Linux based software will bring significant benefits. The new trading system will give it "high performance" trading, as well as an "agile, efficient, in-house IT development capability", it said.

With LSE financial backing, the trading system will be flogged to other stock exchanges around the world.

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.Net is the future, innit?

[Sysman]

Linky?

[AtW]

Linky?

Ooops, sorry: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...switches-linux

[HairyArsedBloke]

So when they have problems after they switch, who are they going to blame then?

The LSE has always had the odd problem, and always will until they get taken over.

[Scary]

They aren't the first are they? Didn't Frankfurt or somewhere like that do the same thing?

As for the outages, I thought that was a feature. If the exchange notices the bots have decided to sell, trading is suspended.

[TimberWolf]

.nuts in the city

Do squirrels prefer Monkey Nuts over Brazil Nuts? I thought I'd feed the squirrels yesterday and took monkey nuts and brazil nuts with me. I was planning to offer both types of nut simultaneously and see which the squirrel would go for first. Would its decision be influenced by size, energy density, proximity, familiarity, taste, or what? The brazil nut does seem quite energy dense and relatively massive. Or would it take both? Anyway, my experiment was to come to nought, as I discovered soon after arriving at the squirrel place, where monkey nuts were strewn everywhere, and a bit further on a mother and child and a huge bag of monkey nuts. A few minutes earlier and science might have prevailed. But as I left the park with a weary heart and nuts, I tried my experiment anyway. A half interested squirrel carrying a monkey nut came forward, to which I threw a brazil nut, which he sniffed and ignored.

[Sysman]

They aren't the first are they? Didn't Frankfurt or somewhere like that do the same thing?

Linux powers world's fastest stock exchange and not just Frankfurt. Had a chance to go there a few years ago, but didn't. Sigh, it would have been good experience -

The Deutsche Borse Group manages the International Securities Exchange, an equity options exchange in New York, as well as the Eurex and Deutsche Borse's own Xetra cash exchange. The Xetra stock exchange platform is also used by the Irish Stock Exchange, the European Energy Exchange, and the Shanghai Stock Exchange among others. It has long used Linux as the basis of these high-speed stock exchanges. Later this year, it is launching a next generation. The new trading infrastructure will use IBM WebSphere MQ Low Latency Messaging and Linux to make it the fastest stock exchange software on the planet.

How fast is it? A Deutsche Borse representative claimed that their Linux-powered exchange software can "easily execute more than a million trades per second, dwarfing even the mighty NY Stock Exchange."

[AtW]

Do squirrels prefer Monkey Nuts over Brazil Nuts? I thought I'd feed the squirrels yesterday and took monkey nuts and brazil nuts with me. I was planning to offer both types of nut simultaneously and see which the squirrel would go for first. Would its decision be influenced by size, energy density, proximity, familiarity, taste, or what? The brazil nut does seem quite energy dense and relatively massive. Or would it take both? Anyway, my experiment was to come to nought, as I discovered soon after arriving at the squirrel place, where monkey nuts were strewn everywhere, and a bit further on a mother and child and a huge bag of monkey nuts. A few minutes earlier and science might have prevailed. But as I left the park with a weary heart and nuts, I tried my experiment anyway. A half interested squirrel carrying a monkey nut came forward, to which I threw a brazil nut, which he sniffed and ignored.

Wallnuts are the best, also happen to be most expensive - don't bother giving them wallnuts in a shell - they'll run away to bury it and eat later, so no fun watching!