News: Data Centre
News: Data Centres - Cooling
Air con fault hits Westpac data centre
An air conditioning fault within one of the data centers at Australia's Westpac Banking Group brought down a section of their IT systems, as well as online service, according to reports.
It had also been reported that Netbank customers might not have access to services this morning, Australian time.
Westpac said the failure, which affected the banking and ATM EFTPOS, has been corrected, this was published around noon.
Westpac Retail and Business Banking executive Rob Coombe apologised to Westpac customers who breakdown.
"We take very seriously the reliability of systems and are very disappointed by the difficulties encountered by our customers and will we carry out a thorough review," said Coombe.
The December 1, 2010 Westpac entered into a five-year contract with IBM for provision of services and capabilities, including infrastructure.
The provision gave the first IBM monitor Westpac's key infrastructure services, such as building new data centers, mainframe, midrange, storage, desktop, printing and security
West Group Executive Technology Bob McKinnon said the new contract will enable Westpac to work for improvements in IT services and capabilities, and help implement a Westpac five year transformation program for the service parameters and requirements.
"This new relationship will support the ongoing significant investment in the Westpac Group IT program, improve our customer contact points and support our multi-brand model." McKinnon said.
The transformation program includes 15 projects to fight against and a series of legacy technology issues, and Westpac have seen it employ 482 specialists in technology over the last six months to help monitor its objectives.
Westpac also has the offshore outsourcing of Infosy Indian companies, TCS and Wipro (IT support).
The company recently acquired fellow bank St. George, and Banquesa credit cards, and part of its migration program includes credit cards of these systems with Westpac creating a platform for a single card, and migration from other platforms that will be implemented in accordance with the whole program.
Quick link: Evaporative cooling for data centres
Submitted by Tim Watts on Friday 13th May 2011