Statement of WorldCom, Inc. on Nasdaq Network Service Interruption

It appears Worldcom is learning. A few years ago when Worldcom had
an outage affecting the Chicago Board of Trade, Mr. Ebbers didn't make
a public statement for over a week. This time Worldcom had a public
statement in less than five hours.

BTW, did anyone ever receive an actual explaination for what happened
two years ago when Worldcom lost their frame-relay? I never did.

Statement of WorldCom, Inc. on Nasdaq Network Service Interruption

6/29/2001 6:47:00 PM
CLINTON, Miss., Jun 29, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- WorldCom, Inc. provides network services to the Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. Today, Nasdaq experienced a service interruption at approximately 2:31 p.m. EDT that affected the quality of stock quotations and resulted in the suspension of Nasdaq's SOES and SelectNet trading systems. All service to the network system, supplied and managed by WorldCom, was restored at approximately 3:33 p.m. EDT.

WorldCom's preliminary investigation into this issue indicates that it was apparently caused during routine testing of a development system for Nasdaq and resulted in the service interruption. WorldCom is continuing its investigation. Additional details will be made available as they are known.

Said WorldCom, Inc. CEO and President Bernard J. Ebbers, "We very much regret this market interruption. For nine years, Nasdaq has been a valued customer. We have resolved this issue and will continue to work with Nasdaq to take all steps necessary to ensure it does not recur."

:It appears Worldcom is learning. A few years ago when Worldcom had
:an outage affecting the Chicago Board of Trade, Mr. Ebbers didn't make
:a public statement for over a week. This time Worldcom had a public
:statement in less than five hours.

It appears that they're learning that public disclosure is necessary for
high-profile problems that will inevitably be picked up quickly by the AP
or others.

The ten-thousand dollar question is who authorized _development testing_
on a production network at 2:30pm - NASDAQ or Wcom? "Routine testing" at
2:30pm? Or was it a fluke related to a problem with personnel
management?

Will the press accept Bernie's quote and forget the incident? Probably.

:BTW, did anyone ever receive an actual explaination for what happened
:two years ago when Worldcom lost their frame-relay? I never did.

Nothing beyond the standard upgrade-gone-wrong stuff. I have yet to find
details as simple as to which sw ver they were upgrading from, and
upgrading to. Information which, combined with subsequent events, could
certainly aid others. It would be interesting to at least learn if they
attempted to do a batch upgrade, or if they staggered upgrades, but ran
into database inconsistencies related to the upgrade.

cheers,
brian

"Routine testing" could well mean "our most junior technician
  was told to clean up the mess of cables, and one fell out."
  I'm sure that's happened to everyone here....

The fact that he *said* something means quite a bit to me, if not
necessarily to anyone else. That would make me more inclined to accept
the statement than if he'd waited a week or three.

"J.D. Falk" wrote:

> The ten-thousand dollar question is who authorized _development testing_
> on a production network at 2:30pm - NASDAQ or Wcom? "Routine testing" at
> 2:30pm? Or was it a fluke related to a problem with personnel
> management?

        "Routine testing" could well mean "our most junior technician
        was told to clean up the mess of cables, and one fell out."
        I'm sure that's happened to everyone here....

Nope. Not here. Nope. No siree...

(once unplugged the wrong end of the fiber optic splitter and took 20
minutes to figure out what was wrong).

its not just uunet then !