The Illinois-based data center supporting CME has reportedly installed a backup cooling system after a massive outage caused major disruption to global markets.
The announcement gained widespread attention after CyrusOne, the company that owns the Chicago 1 (CHI1) data center in Aurora, Illinois, released a statement saying, “We have restored stable and safe operations at our facility. We have added additional redundancy to our cooling system to further improve continuity.”
CME's data center eases tensions after massive power outage
CME Group Inc. is one of the world's leading derivatives markets, operating four exchanges and relies heavily on Aurora data centers. In 2016, CME entered into a deal with CyrusOne to sell the facility to the Dallas-based company. The company is currently owned by KKR & Co. and Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm that jointly acquired and owns CyrusOne.
Specifically, the exchanges operated by CME include the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange, and the Commodity Exchange.
The data center complex's cooling system failed late Thursday, November 27, when a major outage occurred. This outage caused temperatures to rise significantly above 100°F (38°C).
At this time, several possible proposals have been raised based on CME's disaster recovery plan to address this issue and prevent further impacts. One example of a proposal that was put forward was for the company to move to a data center in New York. However, the company decided to cancel the plan after reports said the incident was a short-lived outage.
In contrast, power outages lasted several hours. This power outage was large-scale. It started in Asia and spread around the world, impacting a variety of trading activities on everything from gold and oil to betting on US interest rates.
By Friday afternoon, the day after the incident, most operations had been restored and operating. Regarding the regulator's participation in this scenario, a representative from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission confirmed that the regulator is aware of this issue and is monitoring it. Market as usual.
CME blackout incident heightens market tensions
Trading on the famous currency platform came to a halt after a massive power outage occurred at CME. Futures related to foreign exchange, commodities, U.S. Treasuries and stocks were also affected.
“Due to cooling issues in the CyrusOne data center, our market is currently suspended. Our support team is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and will provide updates to our customers as soon as we have pre-opening details,” CME said in a statement.
This situation prompted the reporter to contact CyrusOne for more information regarding this incident. However, when asked for comment on this matter, the company declined to respond. The Dallas-based company manages more than 55 data centers in Japan, Europe, and the United States.
Regarding the CME notification, according to reports from reliable sources, the operation of the EBS Forex platform has been temporarily suspended due to technical issues.
Meanwhile, traders in the market voiced concerns over the CME power outage. They claimed that the company warned of a trading halt just before 3 a.m. GMT, resulting in significant losses on all Globex futures and options contracts.
One trader, who requested anonymity, called the scenario a “nightmare.” On the other hand, it is worth noting that CME derivatives serve as benchmarks for various markets, including stocks and commodities.
Still, the exact number of CME products affected by the outage remained unclear. Nevertheless, LSEG data highlighted that prices for West Texas Intermediate crude oil, U.S. Treasury futures, S&P 500 futures, palm oil, and gold were not updated.
