Exchanges Ready for Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene is expected to make landfall Saturday in coastal North Carolina and hit the turf that houses the data centers that make up Wall Street on Sunday.

But even if this storm proves to be the strongest to hit the East Coast in 20 years, the nation’s stock exchanges say they expect to operate normally on Monday. Their business continuity plans include backup data centers and NYSE Euronext said it has contingency plans in place.

“We intend to be open for trading on Monday,’’ said Eric Ryan, managing director of corporate communications for NYSE Euronext in New York. “We have contingency plans in place for such events with the goal of having the market up and running while ensuring the safety of our people.”

The Nasdaq Stock Market, the BATS Global Markets exchanges and the venues operated by Direct Edge all said they expect to operate normally.

BATS operates its Z and Y equity exchanges as well as its options exchange out of the NJ2 data center in Weehawken, N.J., maintained by Savvis, a facilities manager. BATS also has a backup facility in Nutley, N.J. for its primary Z exchange.

Traders can connect their systems with order systems at the “warm” facility, in advance of a potential disaster. The Nutley facility will reject the orders, until the Weehawken operation is declared “down.”

As of July 29, BATS said it did not have a secondary data center for the Y exchange or its BATS Options exchange.

Direct Edge said its technicians will inspect its data center facility in Secaucus, NJ for any possible damage throughout the day Sunday.

 That facility is operated by Equinix, another facilities manager.

The company also can operate its EDGX and EDGA exchanges at a backup facility in Clifton, N.J., that is maintained by Telx.

“We will provide an operational update to our members on Sunday and again on Monday morning, August 29th.,’’ the company said.

Nasdaq relies on Verizon Business for information security and business continuity services, at a facility in Carteret, N.J.

The Nasdaq backup facility is in Ashburn, Va.

NYSE Euronext has invested $250 million in a fortress-like facility in Mahwah, N.J. There is only one set of doors into the facility. There are no windows or other openings.

Mahwah's design was executed with events such as hurricanes in mind. The center includes back-up power generation facilities for all critical systems. Its operations are subjected to emergency response tests.

 

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