On Friday, December 20, 2002, starting at Midnight, CME will conduct a total power shutdown in our M1 and M2 Computer Rooms for scheduled maintenance to upgrade electrical circuit breakers.  We anticipate the down time to last for approximately 12 hours, until 12:00 Noon, Saturday, December 21, 2002.

Below is a list of the systems that will be unavailable during those hours:

1.      Mainframe � MVSA and MVSB

2.      MQM

3.      Clearing 21

4.      Portal

5.      FTP Server

6.      3270 On-Line Applications (GAINS, GUS, APS, ATOM, INFOPAC, etc.)

Firms will be unable to do the following:

�        Transmission of MQM TREX messages to and from CME

�        Accessing Clearing 21 applications either via C21 Workstations, Citrix or Portal

�        Logging into the CME Portal for access to Front End Clearing, Document Direct or FirmSoft

�        Downloading data files from CME�s FTP server.

Please be sure to complete your daily processing prior to the 12:00 Midnight cut-off on Friday, December 20th.   We will not start the shut-down BEFORE, clearing processing is completed.   Additionally, we recommend that firms test their FIN and MQM connectivity prior to the start of business on Monday, December 23^rd.

If there are any changes to our power down schedule, a message will be put on FIRMLINE (312) 454- 8989.

To test connectivity, please contact CME Computer Room (312) 930 8150.

Thank you!