3 ms·

My prediction is something will go horribly wrong, then they will go "see, we tried modern tech and it fucked us over", and they will commit to seeing their cod

by sk0g 6y ago

My prediction is something will go horribly wrong, then they will go "see, we tried modern tech and it fucked us over", and they will commit to seeing their code and tech stack turn a century old before considering any updates.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
I read the article and couldn’t figure out what they were actually putting in mongo. If it’s their core processing/ledger then that would be very surprising. But banks have dozens of different systems, some of them would actually almost be suited to Mongo, and some of them have rather loose SLAs. Unless I missed something, the article didn’t really make that clear.
- refset 6y ago
  There's another thread on the homepage right now about Crux [0], which is a database designed specifically to be able to operate downstream from multiple legacy systems using bitemporal indexes to stitch everything together. This pattern is very common in banks e.g. for calculating and reporting on risk positions. I expect you're right that this story is purely about using Mongo for downstream systems. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23493163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23493163
- _Understated_ 6y ago
  That thought did occur to me as well but, in taking the article at face value it's most certainly some core aspect of their banking systems at the very least... If they are intent on replacing the mainframe then, imo, MongoDB would be a bad choice but who knows... the new, challenger banks don't use mainframes.
  - refset 6y ago
    Any ideas what some of the challenger banks are using? I've not seen any examples beyond Nubank (~$10B valuation), who have bet big with Datomic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYuToviSx5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYuToviSx5Q Also: https://www.datomic.com/nubanks-story.html https://www.datomic.com/nubanks-story.html
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      Oracle has a banking platform that they mostly only succeed in selling to smaller banks. I don't know if that would count as "challenger" though.
    - _Understated_ 6y ago
      Not sure exactly but any job ads I've seen for the likes of Monzo and Starling talk about backend engineers that have a deep knowledge of CI/CD and you don't do that on a mainframe. Also, Monzo are heavy users of Kubernetes, so again, no mainframe. [0][1] Starling use AWS and GCP [2] In addition, the cost of entry of a mainframe system is a high bar when you can spin up a server on Azure in seconds and deploy code to it in a handful more seconds and then scale it to the heavens in yet just a few more seconds... all for less than the hourly cost of the IBM salesman. I've yet to see any jobs that mention mainframes, Cobol or the like. [0] - https://monzo.com/blog/2016/09/19/building-a-modern-bank-backend https://monzo.com/blog/2016/09/19/building-a-modern-bank-bac... [1] - https://www.8bitmen.com/an-insight-into-the-backend-infrastructure-of-a-modern-digital-bank-monzo-architecture/ https://www.8bitmen.com/an-insight-into-the-backend-infrastr... [2] - https://blog.container-solutions.com/starling-how-to-build-a-bank-in-a-year https://blog.container-solutions.com/starling-how-to-build-a...
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        > Not sure exactly but any job ads I've seen for the likes of Monzo and Starling talk about backend engineers that have a deep knowledge of CI/CD and you don't do that on a mainframe. The part of the bank that handles core processing is going to be a very small portion of their engineering team. Kube and DevOps ads don’t provide any hints about how much they might rely on DB2, COBOL, etc...
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    The article gave me the impression it might have been for some sort of CRM-like system. I don't know if it would be even possible to replace DB2 with Mongo, the consistency guarantees are too weak. Banks are accountable to the central bank in every jurisdiction in which they operate, I wouldn't see them getting that past one single central bank, let alone 60+ of them.

by sk0g 6y ago

AmericanChopper 6y ago

I read the article and couldn’t figure out what they were actually putting in mongo. If it’s their core processing/ledger then that would be very surprising. But banks have dozens of different systems, some of them would actually almost be suited to Mongo, and some of them have rather loose SLAs. Unless I missed something, the article didn’t really make that clear.

refset 6y ago
There's another thread on the homepage right now about Crux [0], which is a database designed specifically to be able to operate downstream from multiple legacy systems using bitemporal indexes to stitch everything together. This pattern is very common in banks e.g. for calculating and reporting on risk positions. I expect you're right that this story is purely about using Mongo for downstream systems. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23493163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23493163
_Understated_ 6y ago
That thought did occur to me as well but, in taking the article at face value it's most certainly some core aspect of their banking systems at the very least... If they are intent on replacing the mainframe then, imo, MongoDB would be a bad choice but who knows... the new, challenger banks don't use mainframes.
- refset 6y ago
  Any ideas what some of the challenger banks are using? I've not seen any examples beyond Nubank (~$10B valuation), who have bet big with Datomic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYuToviSx5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYuToviSx5Q Also: https://www.datomic.com/nubanks-story.html https://www.datomic.com/nubanks-story.html
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    Oracle has a banking platform that they mostly only succeed in selling to smaller banks. I don't know if that would count as "challenger" though.
  - _Understated_ 6y ago
    Not sure exactly but any job ads I've seen for the likes of Monzo and Starling talk about backend engineers that have a deep knowledge of CI/CD and you don't do that on a mainframe. Also, Monzo are heavy users of Kubernetes, so again, no mainframe. [0][1] Starling use AWS and GCP [2] In addition, the cost of entry of a mainframe system is a high bar when you can spin up a server on Azure in seconds and deploy code to it in a handful more seconds and then scale it to the heavens in yet just a few more seconds... all for less than the hourly cost of the IBM salesman. I've yet to see any jobs that mention mainframes, Cobol or the like. [0] - https://monzo.com/blog/2016/09/19/building-a-modern-bank-backend https://monzo.com/blog/2016/09/19/building-a-modern-bank-bac... [1] - https://www.8bitmen.com/an-insight-into-the-backend-infrastructure-of-a-modern-digital-bank-monzo-architecture/ https://www.8bitmen.com/an-insight-into-the-backend-infrastr... [2] - https://blog.container-solutions.com/starling-how-to-build-a-bank-in-a-year https://blog.container-solutions.com/starling-how-to-build-a...
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      > Not sure exactly but any job ads I've seen for the likes of Monzo and Starling talk about backend engineers that have a deep knowledge of CI/CD and you don't do that on a mainframe. The part of the bank that handles core processing is going to be a very small portion of their engineering team. Kube and DevOps ads don’t provide any hints about how much they might rely on DB2, COBOL, etc...
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  The article gave me the impression it might have been for some sort of CRM-like system. I don't know if it would be even possible to replace DB2 with Mongo, the consistency guarantees are too weak. Banks are accountable to the central bank in every jurisdiction in which they operate, I wouldn't see them getting that past one single central bank, let alone 60+ of them.