Finally, a point is reached where the slightest nudge can bring the whole system grinding to a halt.

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In January 2000 the torrent of data pouring into America's National Security Agency (NSA) brought the system to a crashing halt.

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But Education Secretary Michael Gove has said he wants this modular system to end, to halt what he calls a "culture of re-sits" and restore rigour to the exams system.

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If the IT staff makes an inappropriate administrative change, it could expose mission-critical workloads to the world at large, or bring the system to a screeching halt and trigger serious downtime.

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British Airways was forced to abandon its plans of moving its entire Heathrow operations to Terminal 5 in just three days in April, after its baggage system ground to a halt, resulting in chaos in the terminal's opening days.

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Now it hopes to involve airlines and companies such as Boeing in overhauling the entire system before it grinds to a halt.

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Even if operators had smart sensors throughout the system, they could do little to halt problems from spreading, because they lack suitable control systems.

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The moment that Greece defaults, its bonds will no longer be eligible for use as ECB collateral, the Greek banking system will collapse, and this process will screech to a halt.

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The divisiveness that threatens to bring Washington to a halt on at least a monthly basis is destroying our system.

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According to Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. officials, Wednesday's halt was caused by a software problem in its Small Order Executive System and its quote update system by Carlsbad, Calif.

CNN: Software glitch forces brief shutdown of Nasdaq