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It's probably a combination of things: incompatible systems being forced to work together, inexperienced coders, lack of management resources and interest meaning that the "it'll do - move on" way of thinking gets prevalent, that kind of thing.
For sure, the heads that roll won't be the ones actually responsible! 
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Like they say, if it compiles clean, it's a go for live.
I noticed how profligate they have become issuing apologies. As if that makes everything okay. I think they also implied the poor systems they "inherited" from Ulster Bank were partly to blame. Nothing like piling your own shite on the doorstep of someone else! 
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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Any really big bank (organisation) that has subsumed 1 or more little banks is a travelling disaster of incompatible systems. It is guaranteed that it will have caused major issues, if they are suffering from other systemic shortcomings then that will only magnify the problem. I would think 4 outages in 2 years is probably reasonable.
As for transparency I don't think the language allows it to be in the same sentence as that industry!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I'm working my assumptions here on the architecture from 10-15 years ago, but to the best of my knowledge things haven't changed that much.
The card system will be a separate system running on it's own box or boxes, but the PIG1 specifies that one organisation has a single active node on the payments network. A big bugerement is then the interface from the card system to the retail systems. The retail system will hold the customers, accounts and balances. Behind the retail system will also be a GL which in RBS's case I would guess is shared across all the entities.
I'm going by experience, but they are probably running disparate systems for each entity - RBS, NatWest, Northern - and the card system will go out to the relevant system to authorise payment requests and place reserves when monies are paid.
Possible fups in this start with PIN confirmation. Though the smart2 terminals can check the PIN at source, this is also sent to the card system. There are some nasty asymmetric keys used by the various participants and if you don't have these set up correctly the PIN gets KNACKED every time.
Then there'll be the comms between card and retail systems. It is possible that some clever opps got the mapping wrong so RBS requests go to Northern, etc. I've seen this in a production system; but not for very long.
If the comms is not wrong then there's a scalability issue. IIRC every message must receive a response within 10 seconds; you may wait longer when things are busy but that's because the terminal is waiting to send. If their systems cannot handle the volume at peak times then they are truly and utterly over the barrel with the sailor undoing his belt. Unfortunately their outages have all been during peak volume periods, so I think the best thing for us to do is hope they've got some vaseline.
1 Participants Interface Guide - defines the messages required and the actions they must trigger.
2 Think Paris Smart rather than Marvin Smart here.
speramus in juniperus
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I'd bet, in their software, there is a queue or variable that can hold a certain number of items/data.
So when things get busy there is some sort of exception due to overflow.
Banking software being old and huge - it's probably difficult to find the bug's origin.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Not sure about the RBS, but I spent a bit of time in Ulster Bank's HQ and I know they share systems/resources.
Long story short, I'm surprised they don't go down more often! Scary!
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Hey V. what happend to the famous MQOTD? You ran out of ideas? or did i miss something?
Hmm i wonder why its doing that......ARGHS NO STOP, ROLLBACK ROLLBACK...F*** That's how i learned to "Always Backup"!!
Dogs are man's best Friend,
Cats are man's adorable little serial killer
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You missed something. I was out for three weeks, but next Monday, MQOTD is back.
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I got as far as "Greenpeace" and turned off.
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This is my kind of woman[^]! Hubba, hubba!!!![Heart | [heart]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/love.gif)
Will Rogers never met me.
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This lady is 
---
The nk.
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What was the vid about? A lady ... well that's all i got 
Loading signature...
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Thou should not covet JSOP's wife! Just saying! It's in the Bible somewhere... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
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I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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Johnny J. wrote: It's in the Bible somewhere
And on top of it there are real reasons to worry about - he has guns.
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By the looks of it, she could become one quite easily if she wanted.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Roger Wright wrote: This is my kind of woman[^]! Hubba, hubba!!!
An excellent example of the downside of the US free speech right and the ability to proliferate ignorant rants via the internet.
I have no problem with the right to bear arms but that tirade does nothing to instill confidence in the ability of many people to understand what the US constitution means.
But at least I get a chuckle out of being reminded about how that.
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There is something hilariously ironic in your post...
thanks for the chuckle
Charlie Gilley
<italic>You're going to tell me what I want to know, or I'm going to beat you to death in your own house.
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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A little political for the lounge perhaps?
I listened for a few minutes. There is a basic flaw in her air bag analogy. A fire arm is not like an airbag as you can't crash an air bag and cause death. A better analogy would be that a car is like a firm arm as it can also kill. This of course breaks down because a car has a practical purpose beyond killing where as a fire arm does not.
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Is this your bunny[^]?
Well done on the training, buddy!
Will Rogers never met me.
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I knew sheep were thick but that really does show it up. Still one way to exercise them I suppose.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I wish!
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I don't have the time or patience, but maybe one of you tinkerers has the desire to make a few million $ off my idea.
Take a controller (arduino fro example) and some individually-addressable LED lights.
Connect them and write software to colour them individually, one at a time.
Don't put the lights in any neat order, just scatter them.
Point a web cam at them, and write software to turn on each light, locate that light in the video feed, and store the coordinates.
Repeat for all lights.
Take an image (jpg or whatever)
Using the coordinates of the lights you just mapped, display the image using the lights.
Obviously you'd need a lot of lights for a really good image - but with a couple of hundred you should be able to get something recognisable I'd think.
So far so good.
Now, do an animation.
Awesome.
Now for total awesomeness, allow the lights to be positioned in 3D. You'd have to scan them in multiple times with a known camera angle - but you can handle that.
Now you have a 3D map of the lights - imagine the images you can display? Holographic-like images, messages in 3D - the world is limited only by your imagination and the depth of your pocket.
Feel free to commercialise your product -0 sell the HW and SW or just source the SW and sell the SW - whatever is good for you.
But next Xmas, when your product is essential buying for everyone with an Xmas tree to decorate, and you have to move house just to home the wads of cash that are coming in, remember me?
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Sounds a lot like how the Microsoft Kinect works, minus the positioning LED's?
.-.
|o,o|
,| _\=/_ .-""-.
||/_/_\_\ /[] _ _\
|_/|(_)|\\ _|_o_LII|_
\._. |\_/|"` |_| ==== |_|
|_|_| ||" || ||
|-|-| ||LI o ||
|_|_| ||'----'||
/_/ \_\ /__| |__\
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I guess you're kinda right - although it does a shedload more than would be necessary for a pretty dispay - prob a bit more lie the PS3 Move which has a light on the end of the controller.
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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