The web that weaves together much of the global financial ecosystem went down for a few hours on Friday when the Bloomberg data and communication network unexpectedly crashed.

The failure at Bloomberg, which provides data and trading services for 325,000 financial professionals around the world, effectively shut down some parts of the capital markets and forced traders to confront their level of reliance on the Bloomberg system.

“The fact is, Bloomberg connects 100 percent of the Street, and all that human intelligence is what makes markets hum,” one Hong Kong banker, whose company’s policy does not allow him to speak publicly, said during the failure.

The problem, which began about an hour before the end of the Asian trading day, lasted for about two and a half hours, and most Bloomberg terminals were back up and running by the time that United States markets opened Friday morning.