New York Board of Trade gets back to business

Computerworld - QUEENS, N.Y. -- Traders waved their arms and barked orders last week for coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton and orange juice, just as they typically do, from depressed pits at the New York Board of Trade.
But when trading commenced Monday, the action took place in a crammed temporary facility located here -- seemingly an ocean away from the smoldering rubble where the Board of Trade's headquarters a week earlier bustled in the World Trade Center.
IT staffers had major trading systems up and running within a day thanks to the disaster planning that the Board of Trade did in the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The company spent $300,000 a year renting space in Queens for a trading floor and its backup Compaq Computer Corp. Himalaya 72000 at a business-recovery facility owned by Rosemont, Ill.-based Comdisco Inc.
"That was a hot topic at the last budget cycle: Why should we continue to spend $300,000 for something we'll never use?" said CEO Mark Fichtel. "That's what insurance is all about. You hate paying the premiums, but you're sure glad you did when you have to collect."
Until the 1993 bombing, the Board of Trade's disaster-recovery facility consisted of a vacant "cold site" in Philadelphia rented from SunGard Data Systems Inc. Cold sites are less costly but must be activated from scratch, using backup tapes, and "you're always running the risk that a tape is bad," said Steven Bass, a senior vice president of IT at the Board of Trade. It also ran the risk of being unable to secure choice space, since relocation facilities generally get filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
So the Board of Trade elected to invest in a hot site, with the knowledge that it wouldn't lie entirely fallow. The backup Compaq box in Queens served as a development system. And on a quarterly basis, IT staffers descended on the deserted Queens facility to test the disaster plan, much as they might conduct a fire drill. A typical test would run an hour and 45 minutes.
"No one liked to do it," said Ian Nelson, vice president of technical operations. "It always meant coming in on a Saturday and spending a beautiful day here."
Ironically, the quarterly test scheduled for Sept. 8 had been postponed to Sept. 15 due to electrical work being done at 4 World Trade Center. As it turned out, the plan was put into action for real on Sept. 11, and the first challenge was the logistical problem of reaching