LSE's Topic Returns To Tenuous Normalcy In Wake Of Discomfiting Big Bang Computer Crash

After its embarrassing failure on Big Bang day, the Topic data service at the London Stock Exchange has almost returned to normal. Topic users can again see all the data they could see prior to the October 27th crash, although an upward fluctuation in demand could again truncate some services.

All information on Topic is now restored, with the exception of Level I, says Ross Lidstone, manager of Topic Services, Inc., the LSE's U.S. marketing arm. All data normally in Level I, he says, is available elsewhere on the system.

"If you put a new monkey or dodo in the zoo, people will queue up to see it," says LSE chairman Sir Nicholas Goodison, who says first-day rubberneckers caused the unprecedented volume of page requests that brought trading to a halt. While SEAQ -- the brand new Stock Exchange Automated Quotation system -- worked flawlessly, it was the aging Topic system that gave way, taking SEAQ with it.

In the newly deregulated London market, only market-makers have direct access to SEAQ screens. Others -- about 10,000 of them -- can retrieve SEAQ quotes only through the six-year-old Topic system, which was designed to handle a maximum of 12,000 page requests per minute. Topic offers about 60,000 pages of information.

After 59 minutes of operation on the morning of the 27th, the page request rate slammed into the 200 requests/second ceiling and the system failed. Although the underlying SEAQ system continued to function, it had to be shut down as well because its chief price dissemination mechanism was out of commission. Topic and SEAQ were down for an hour and eleven minutes. When they returned, the range of data available had been severely curtailed. Gone was information from NASDAQ and from U.K. government securities market-makers.

On the following day, NASDAQ crashed SEAQ. All seemed well until the U.S. markets opened, when the tidal wave of data flowing across the Atlantic forced another shutdown -- this time for 31 minutes. Again the NASDAQ and government securities prices were dropped, and the system was restored.

Since the second flop, requests have remained above historical levels, but a combination of software kludges and restraint on the part of users has prevented further crashes. The missing data has gradually been restored, and short of another surge in demand -- which would again trip the software circuit breakers -- Topic appears stable. As a long-term solution, LSE officials to overhaul Topic by adding more computers and redesigning software. This is expected to take six months or more.