Issue 95 ‘Assessing the continued use of TIBCO service as a source of data for market participants’

This Issue Group seeks to establish the future of the TIBCO messaging service with the migration of BMRS as part of Elexon’s transformation programme.

Elexon is building a new Solution for BMRS and need to understand views from BSC Parties to improve value with regards to data publications. Elexon believe it is now important to re-examine the requirements of BSC Parties and BMRS users in relation to the longevity and current implementation of the BSC obligations with respect to TIBCO.

We suggest that the following questions form a ‘terms of reference’ for the Issue Group.

1. How is TIBCO currently used by market participants and to what extent?
2. What would the implications of discontinuing TIBCO be? Does data provided by alternative TIBCO sources meet your requirements?
3. What would the implications of continuing to use TIBCO be? Are there any associated opportunity costs to its continued support?
4. Are there merit in supporting a High Grade service in the future?
5. If deemed appropriate, what would be the best approach to phase out TIBCO service?

Workgroup discussion on the Terms of Reference and consideration of the identified issues will be a valuable source of industry feedback, to determine the future use of TIBCO.

One solution the Workgroup may consider is to decommission the TIBCO messaging service, on a phased approach over a timescale agreeable by High Grade users, whilst separately assessing whether the TIBCO Relay Service should be discontinued. Another outcome could be, if deemed to be of value to continue TIBCO, to incorporate this service within future BMRS architecture.

 The outcome of this Issue Group would to identify the area of the BSC that needs to be changed so that Elexon to provide greater flexibility on future technologies to be ported to future data platform.

Issue 95 was raised by Elexon on 17 June 2021.

Due to difficulties in publicising Issue 95 to TIBCO users and sourcing enough members to establish quoracy, our ability to hold the first meeting was significantly delayed. 

The first Issue group meeting was held on 16 February 2022, where users of TIBCO provided feedback on their organisations current usage of TIBCO and helped to clarify the requirements for any replacement.

Elexon produced an Options Paper document for Issue 95 that describes and expands on the various options for the future of TIBCO. 

The Issue 95 group met on 30 November to consider the Options Paper and its outcomes. Having considered the options, the Issue 95 group recommend that a BSC Modification be raised to decouple the BMRA from the obligation to provide BMRS data via the High Grade line (TIBCO reporting) identified within Section V (although noting a thorough assessment of other impacted BSC documents will be needed as part of the Modification process).