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ASX shutdown caused by 'unprecedented' malfunction

Friday, 23 Sep 2016 11:25:32 | Thuy Ong

The ASX has only closed on three previous occasions in the last 10 years. (Reuters: David Gray)

An "unprecedented hardware malfunction" caused the Australian share market to shut down on Monday, according to a report on the disruptions released by the ASX.

On Monday, the Australian share market was shut early after a tumultuous day which saw technical problems delay the market open and disrupt trade.

The ASX said it maintains a full replication of its systems in a back-up data centre.

However, when a malfunction triggered a complete database "failover" - which is when a system automatically transfers control to a duplicate system when it detects a fault or failure - not all parts of the ASX could successfully connect to that back up.

"The nature of the hardware malfunction caused the failover process to respond in an unprecedented way," the report concluded.

"Put simply, there was inconsistency: the broken database hardware failed-over to the back-up data centre correctly and most parts of ASX Trade failed-over and connected to the new database.

However, some parts remained connected to the original database, thinking it was operating normally."

External Link: The ASX's tweet on its report

ASX operators were initially unaware of the anomaly.

However, during afternoon trade, the ASX said reference data inconsistency emerged for a group of securities and the system stopped functioning properly.

That was the result of the original hardware malfunction, and prompted the ASX to halt the market.

ASX chief executive Dominic Stevens said there was no choice but to stop trade once anomalies started arising.

"ASX does not decide to close the market lightly. Understandably, concerns have been raised on various fronts," he said.

"However, we make no apologies for following our long-established and well understood protocols nor for exercising our judgement to ensure the market was fair, orderly and transparent."

The ASX has only had to halt trade during the session in three years out of the past ten, and only on rare occasions during those years.

The data inconsistency could not be resolved before the close of trade and, that night, the failed hardware was replaced.

The ASX said it has updated its procedures to address the unprecedented scenario if it were to reoccur.

The company said neither it nor its vendors can confirm having ever seen that type of malfunction before.

"The hardware malfunction ASX experienced was complex and unprecedented. It took time to investigate properly and involved input from third party vendors," Mr Stevens said.

AustraliaPlus


 

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