Today it is Westpac’s turn. Recently it has been Comm Bank and the National Australia Bank.
According to this report a faulty AirCon Unit in their Data Centre caused the total loss of their national ATM and POS network. Then the subsequent increased load on their Internet Banking facility crashed that.
Perhaps we should all avoid buying the products of that AirCon supplier!
Westpac made the news yesterday too – that was when they reported a record A$4 billion profit for the first 6 months of the year.
Perhaps they should use some of that money to harden their Data Centre, or buy a second AirCon unit.
It would make a very interesting case study to understand how such an outage could occur.
- What part of the high availability design for these services did not perform the way it was meant to?
- Was it a failure of operating procedures or technology?
- Is it an issue associated with outsourced service providers and cost saving, rather than service delivery, focus?
Unfortunately these learning opportunities are rarely available for the public or even the same industry.
Here is the interesting point, and echos a conversation I had with a New Zealand colleague over dinner tonight.
Will this impact their reputation?
I bank with these guys, through their St George subsidiary. I can tell you I will not be changing Banks. It is just too much trouble and this didnt impact me enough to want to change. Moving a mortgage and multiple personal and business bank accounts means a lot of stuffing around- it would need to impact me personally a lot more than this outage could have.
Anyway, who do I change to – CommBank or NAB?
Have we created something of a myth around ‘reputation risk’ and the implications for a business?
Is the impact of reputation short-term, or perhaps limited to ‘commodity’ services?
What would it take to prompt you to move Banks (or other significant supplier)?
I should also disclose that both Westpac and St George are both former clients.
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