RBS/Natwest Outage

[glennda]

Sky news are reporting that Hardware failure caused the RBS outage last night!!

 

Talk about trying to avoid single points of failure... no matter how much money you have it doesn't always work!

[Michael]

At least it wasn't a software upgrade this time. Would of been somewhat embarassing!

 

I think no matter how redundant you make a network, there are still single points of failure. It does sound like a core switch that caused the problems.

[Edu-IT]

Didn't even know there was a failure. What has it affected?

[Michael]

Card payments and cash machines apparently from 10pm until 1am.

[sted]

At least it wasn't a software upgrade this time. Would of been somewhat embarassing!

 

I think no matter how redundant you make a network, there are still single points of failure. It does sound like a core switch that caused the problems.

 

unless the failure was a lie

 

does seem pretty silly to have a single pof in something as mission critical as bank payment systems

[glennda]

At least it wasn't a software upgrade this time. Would of been somewhat embarassing!

 

I think no matter how redundant you make a network, there are still single points of failure. It does sound like a core switch that caused the problems.

 

but that is the point in VRRP you have something split across both so that functionality still happens even if one switch does!

[Michael]

unless the failure was a lie

 

does seem pretty silly to have a single pof in something as mission critical as bank payment systems

 

Who knows, they can't deny the outage either way

[Michael]

but that is the point in VRRP you have something split across both so that functionality still happens even if one switch does!

 

I'd agree with you in principle. I think the point I was trying to make is that human error (as the single point of failure) is there in every network.

 

For example if they were doing maintenance at one link and then someone manually switched off another link, this would be an example of human error.

[glennda]

I'd agree with you in principle. I think the point I was trying to make is that human error (as the single point of failure) is there in every network.

 

For example if they were doing maintenance at one link and then someone manually switched off another link, this would be an example of human error.

 

Yup I wasn't factoring humans!

[MatthewL]

No technology is 100% perfect you have to expect things to go down here and there.

 

If you expect things to be up all the time then you need to take a reality check.

[vikpaw]

unless the failure was a lie

 

does seem pretty silly to have a single pof in something as mission critical as bank payment systems

 

The ATMs run on windows and frequently blue screen or show error messages, you don't think they plan for failure and build resilient systems do you. They just sing the "too big to fail" mantra and hope!

[TechMonkey]

Now I am probably being totally paranoid but it's funny that they announce huge losses (while still paying out bonuses to keep staff sweet), the Bank of England suggests breaking up RBS as it isn't worth as much as they thought and then this happens all the while RBS saying that they could speed up the privatization process.

How many bets the bank gets sold for a loss and then suddenly becomes very profitable and a room they forgot about is found with Scrooge McDuck amounts of cash in?

[michael2k6]

I expect this system to be up all of the time, yes - I was in a hotel, trying to pay for a meal I'd just eaten. I couldn't pay for the hotel or the meal and was 350 miles away from home. Had I have been in a fuel station I'd have a full car of fuel with no means to pay, which is illegal. The whole point of having the debit card is so you don't have to carry cash, which means it must be a system that can be relied upon; if you're saying we're stupid to rely upon it @MatthewL then you've just said there's no point in having a debit card?

I was absolutely furious... 2k in that bank account, and embarassed by my card being declined twice. It was only after a 20 minute call to natwest we discovered why and as it was fixed in the morning I paid then, after a night of interesting amount of sleep.