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And shut down your entire operation while said team worked? The problem is that the average banks system is a kind of Frankenstein tree that have grown inside

And shut down your entire operation while said team worked? The problem is that the average banks system is a kind of Frankenstein tree that have grown inside and around every policy, procedure and task the bank performs without any coherent design and with several dozen loosely coupled component each with is own poor and fragmented documentation. And while it's typically only required to remain up 16-18 hours a day you have a zero allowance for unplanned downtime and a fairly high peak load which along with the age and complexity of some of the components make the entire systems a nightmare to run on a tight budget. And it's worth nothing that the system that failed was not the Frankenstein system they inherited from Lloyds but the new one they tried to import from Spain.

walshemj 8y ago
Which is based on a cobol system from Accenture from what I hear.
ethbro 8y ago
This. Banks can't have extended downtime. So if a $100M budget would get a new system built, then what they would need is a $200M budget ($100M to run legacy in prod + $100M to build new system and gradually migrate). The only good in-house systems I've ever seen we're (a) based on vendor reference designs w/ minimal changes, (b) based on OSS, (c) architected by some very smart people who stay at the company for non-monetary reasons. Because when you boil it down to it, no company is big enough to solve a problem better than a group working with multiple companies (unless the problem is trivial). Or to word it another way, are you bigger / better / smarter than both of your top competitors put together? If no, then don't reinvent the wheel.
- Khaine 8y ago
  Banks can't have any downtime. They need to be able to process EFTPOS and Credit Card Transactions 24x7. Now, not all systems need to be always available in the bank, but the key ones do.

walshemj 8y ago

Which is based on a cobol system from Accenture from what I hear.

ethbro 8y ago

This. Banks can't have extended downtime. So if a $100M budget would get a new system built, then what they would need is a $200M budget ($100M to run legacy in prod + $100M to build new system and gradually migrate). The only good in-house systems I've ever seen we're (a) based on vendor reference designs w/ minimal changes, (b) based on OSS, (c) architected by some very smart people who stay at the company for non-monetary reasons. Because when you boil it down to it, no company is big enough to solve a problem better than a group working with multiple companies (unless the problem is trivial). Or to word it another way, are you bigger / better / smarter than both of your top competitors put together? If no, then don't reinvent the wheel.

Khaine 8y ago
Banks can't have any downtime. They need to be able to process EFTPOS and Credit Card Transactions 24x7. Now, not all systems need to be always available in the bank, but the key ones do.