Bloomberg Terminal Outage Creates CIO Headache
The role of the CIO is to ensure that everything functions “just.” If we’re experiencing a problem, it’s because the systems we’re responsible for suddenly cease to function at the point that everyone is aware of the importance of technology. As they wait for us to make things work, then we race around trying to find out the reason for what is wrong. The nightmare was an actual reality for CIOs recently when the costly Bloomberg terminals used by traders for business operations experienced an extended downtime.
What happened?
For financial traders, data is a form of currency. One way to get access to the data they require today now in this 21st Century is by subscribing to an information service provided through Bloomberg LP. For just US$20,000 per year, you’ll gain access to what’s known as”Bloomberg Terminal. “Bloomberg Terminal.” These terminals are utilized by traders to assess the market’s current conditions and to make trades based on the information.
It turned out that this disruption was a much more significant issue than the majority of CIOs could have imagined at first. The reason for this is that in the course of time, traders have become increasingly dependent upon their Bloomberg terminals. To be able to trade, traders have to communicate with another trader. They do this using the electronic chat tool, which is integrated inside Bloomberg. Bloomberg terminal. After the blackout, it also made this feature unusable.
To make matters more complex, when Bloomberg terminals weren’t available, traders struggled to use their phones or other methods to communicate with other traders. The reason why this was so difficult to achieve was due to the fact that they weren’t sure how to contact them. The reason for this was that the electronic “contact list” of the people they had interacted with, along with their telephone number and email address, was stored in their Bloomberg terminal that was no longer accessible.
Why did it happen?
What transpired was Bloomberg network was struck by a major computer network outage. The consequence of this issue was that a number of its terminals were out of service for many several hours. This clearly caused a massive disturbance for the traders that depended heavily on the terminals.
Bloomberg states that the reason for the downtime was a complicated set of events. Bloomberg claims that a mix of software and hardware failures in their network caused the outage. This led to that it led to an uncontrollable growth in the volume of traffic on the network that is needed to handle. The result of this growth in volume was that users’ terminals were shut down because their terminals were overwhelmed with the network’s traffic. Bloomberg states that they were able quickly to identify the hardware that was malfunctioning and then restarted their software and are currently working to figure out why their many redundant systems did not work to prevent this scenario from occurring.
From the CIO’s perspective from CIO’s perspective, we know that these outages could occur and are likely to happen in the near future. What we have to do is to make sure that we are taking measures to manage the scenario we’ll encounter in the event it occurs. For companies who utilize Bloomberg terminals, this means maintaining backup copies of contact details, creating ways to communicate with other traders, or perhaps organizing some kind of “Bloomberg terminal shut down” session for training.
What does this mean What Does This Mean For What Does This Mean For
Many people who hold the CIO job are aware that you do not realize how much you depend on the system until it goes inaccessible. This happened recently as the Bloomberg terminals used by traders went down. This is precisely the kind of scenario that the person who holds the CIO position is trying hard to avoid.
The Bloomberg network was hit by an issue with its hardware that affected the software system. Despite several layers of redundancy, the network experienced an increase in traffic which led to many customers not being able to access their computers. Bloomberg’s Bloomberg system also allows traders to communicate with one another and store contact details and all of these were unavailable during the interruption.
As CIOs, we understand that we cannot control every aspect. But, we also recognize that bad things can occur, which means we have to take measures to be prepared for them if they occur. What is this implies for CIOs who work for companies that use Bloomberg terminals is that they should recognize how vital the devices are and must take the necessary steps to ensure that the business can continue operating regardless of whether terminals fail in the near future.
