[time-nuts] Google NTP Servers and smearing leap seconds...

xaos at darksmile.net xaos at darksmile.net
Sat Sep 17 05:49:58 UTC 2011


Love it!

You just brought to mind one of the least known (but best) true  
stories about Linux, Windows big money and even bigger BS.

This is an absolutely 100% true story:

September 8, 2008 was the busiest Forex trading day in the history of  
stock markets.

On that day, the London stock exchange failed. It was down for the entire day.
Fortunes were lost.

Why? Well, it is a well known fact that the Exchange (LSE) was run by  
a notorious Windows advocate by the name of "Clara Furse". It was her  
push to an "All Windows Shop" that brought to light some serious  
architectural problems with Windows. Especially when exposed to a  
super high volume trading environment.

Even as the exchange was shut down by Windows issues she continued to  
praise MS and Windows for the great job they did in solving the  
problems.

She lost her job soon after this incident. Good riddance. I had  
dealing with her office (and some of her staff) and they were a bunch  
of idiots.

Linux is now the standard among any Wall St. and Banking firms.  
Nothing compares.

Read this article for more info:  
http://blogs.computerworld.com/14876/london_stock_exchange_dumps_windows_for_linux

Google has a ton of more info on it.

-George

Quoting lists at lazygranch.com:

> Bring back the transaction tax and I suspect these timing issues  
> will go away.
>
> I recall reading the London exchange was experimenting with linux  
> and mysql, supposedly faster than what they were using.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xaos at darksmile.net
> Sender: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:59:01
> To: <time-nuts at febo.com>
> Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> 	<time-nuts at febo.com>
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Google NTP Servers and smearing leap seconds...
>
> With the recent wild fluctuations in the Commodities markets it is
> incredibly important that time delay between any 2 parties (in a
> financial transaction) be reduced to a minimum.
>
> Only a few years ago, gold, silver and oil would vary by a few dollars
> (at most), intraday and even intraweek.
>
> Lately, we had jumps of a few hundred dollars in a few minutes/seconds.
>
> If a bank makes a few 100+ Mil transactions a day (trust me this is
> not even a blip on the radar in some places) those extra microsecs add
> up.
>
> Now, one would think mathematically about this and say "it should
> average out". Well, no! The market (for some weird reason) has a mind
> of it's own and when you start to lose money, it just gets worse and
> worse.
>
> Even the best mathematical predictors (computer models and humans)
> break down when the market volatility (randomness) goes up.
>
> What does "up" or "down" volatility mean? Depends on the day.
>
> The point is, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, you want to bail
> out of your position ASAP. However, the time delay between you and
> your overseas party added another 50-1000 microseconds to the closing
> time, you just lost another xxxx dollars and in a losing day that adds
> up!
>
> I've worked on trading floors for many years and seen people drop dead
> after they got closing confirmation!
>
> No wonder most traders are so young.
>
> Have a nice weekend everyone!
>
> Quoting shalimr9 at gmail.com:
>
>> I just read they were building a new transatlantic cable that will
>> shave 10uS from the normal 60 or so uS and that for large traders,
>> 1uS represents 100 million $ per year saving/increased revenue.
>>
>> Didier KO4BB
>>
>> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xaos at darksmile.net
>> Sender: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
>> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:05:40
>> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency
>> measurement<time-nuts at febo.com>; Hal Murray<hmurray at megapathdsl.net>
>> Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>> 	<time-nuts at febo.com>
>> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Google NTP Servers and smearing leap seconds...
>>
>> You are right.
>>
>> To be more precise, I should have said that the time sync should be at
>> least 1 order of magnitude less. In the case of <10us turnaround time,
>> it is assumed that the timesync is <1us. This is the reason that
>> everyone uses multiple stratum 1 NTP servers using GPS in their
>> datacenters.
>>
>> So the Forex transaction goes like this:
>>
>> 1. (Both parties) Are we in proper sync timewise?
>> 2. (Party 1) I need transaction type x. My timestamp is: xxxx.xxxx. Go.
>> 3. (PArty 2) Confirmed. My timestamp is: yyyy.yyyy. Go.
>>
>> These timestamps are legal entities and bind both parties to the  
>> transaction.
>> That's why transactions have a data transfer entity in the middle
>> (Reuters, Bloomberg) which guarantees proper timesync for all involved.
>>
>> With Reuters in the middle, only the Reuters timestamp (arrival time
>> and send time) can be trusted.
>>
>> However, Many times you will see a Reuters machine lose sync and the
>> UNIX SA's will restart NTP on it. Reuters puts more than one machine
>> per site for redundancy.
>>
>> Quoting Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net>:
>>
>>>
>>> xaos at darksmile.net said:
>>>> You can forget Wall St. firms and Banks for starters.
>>>
>>>> They need sub-microsecond accurate timing as some instruments  
>>>> (Forex)   are
>>>> moving to <10 microsecond latency from order entry to order ack.
>>>
>>> 10 microsecond latency doesn't say anything about how accurate the time has
>>> to be.
>>>
>>> Does anybody have a good URL on the accuracy requirements of banks and/or
>>> stock markets?  I expect there are both legal and technical issues.
>>>  I'd like
>>> to understand them separately but I won't be surprised if they are
>>> thoroughly
>>> tangled.
>>>
>>> --
>>> These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
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