Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” – a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
London Stock Exchange – UK
Project : TradElect
Date : Sep 2009 Cost :$68M
Synopsis :
After four years of development, but just two years of use the London Stock Exchange’s flagship trading platform (TradElect) is to be decommissioned and replaced. Lending credence to allegations that recent outages at the exchange were caused by the TradElect, the announcement of a replacement signifies a switch from the Windows based platform to Linux. Although the LSE is refusing to confirm or deny any reasons for the switch observers are reporting that the Windows infrastructure was an inappropriate choice for the mission in question.
Contributing factors as reported in the press :
System performance problems. System reliability. Inappropriate choice of technologies.
Other related stories
Those who monitor project failures may remember in the London Stock Exchange’s Taurus project from the 1990’s. That project has become a classic case study in project failure and is documented in a number books such as “Crash” by T. Collins and D. Bicknell. Reference Taurus.
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