At FYERS, we strive to offer our users the best possible trading experience and service quality. However, we also acknowledge that rare glitches are inevitable in any business that relies on technology. Sometimes, factors such as internet disruptions, exchange outages, or third-party service failures can cause issues that can affect our trading systems and platforms.
We understand how frustrating and stressful this situation can be for our clients, especially when they impact their trading and investing activities. This is why we have always been proactive and implemented measures to prevent, detect and resolve issues as soon as possible. In this blog post, I will share how we at FYERS manage this with professionalism and transparency.
A case study of a recent technical glitch (25th May 2023).
To illustrate our approach to handling technical glitches, let us take a look at a recent case study of a leased line disconnection from our primary Internet Service Provider (ISP), Bharti Airtel, on 25th May 2023.
What happened?
At 9:20 AM, there was a leased line disconnection from our primary ISP, Bharti Airtel. Basically, there are two leased lines: a primary one and a secondary one. If the primary leased line goes down, the servers will automatically switch to the secondary line. However, that did not happen here. The primary leased line was not completely down; it went up and down six consecutive times. Whenever the leased line was up, fresh orders went through to the exchange; the orders did not go through when it was down. Without the primary leased line going down completely, the system would not switch to the secondary leased line. This is commonly referred to as 'Internet Flapping' and can prevent failover systems from functioning properly. You can check out the screenshots of the alerts sent by the exchange with respect to this issue below.
Exchange's confirmation on said issue.
How did we fix it?
We manually switched the servers to the secondary leased line and fixed the issue at 9:50 AM. We monitored the situation closely for 10 minutes before confirming the resolution.
What was the impact?
There were two possible scenarios for the orders placed during this period:
Orders placed before disconnection: The orders placed were sent to the exchange and assigned an exchange order ID. Once the IDs were assigned, the exchange would execute them as per the bid/ask.
Orders placed after disconnection: As there was a disconnection from the exchange, the orders placed during this period were rejected.
Once the issue was resolved and the connection was re-established, we ran a reconciliation of orders with the exchange to find out the status of our users' orders/positions.
How did we communicate?
We communicated with our users by publishing a Notice on our notice board, push app notifications, inbound voice calls, outbound callbacks, and social media channels such as Twitter and the FYERS community. We informed our users proactively, ensuring transparency.
Our approach to handling technical glitches
We follow a three-pronged approach to managing this:
Robust systems and processes: We use cloud services, scalable infrastructure, and backup systems with an aim to reduce single points of failure. In addition to this, we also have various processes in place to cope with any technical issues.
Professional support and guidance: We can access professional support and guidance from various stakeholders such as market regulators, exchanges, vendors, and peers.
Learning and improvement: We learn from our experiences and improve our practices and standards over time. For example, we conduct root cause analysis (RCA) of the technical glitches and implement corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) to avoid recurrence. We also monitor our performance indicators and benchmarks and work on the feedback received by our customers and partners.
Conclusion:
Internet disruptions are unavoidable in any platform that relies on ISPs. However, they are not insurmountable or irreversible. At FYERS, we overcome the challenges posed by technical glitches by having robust systems and processes, seeking professional support, and learning from our experiences. In fact, technical glitches can be an opportunity for us to demonstrate our professionalism, customer-centricity, and transparency.
We regret the inconvenience caused and truly appreciate your patience and support. We look forward to your continued patronage as we further strengthen our platform and capabilities with every new challenge.