IBM's Warwick, UK, data centre was hit by a power outage on Thursday, causing customers' mission-critical systems to be down for several hours, according to a source.

Many customers use this IBM data centre to host their applications, including Edwards Ltd., a global manufacturer of vacuum pump technologies for precision engineering.

It chose IBM Global Technology Services' Applications on Demand to host its systems at IBM Warwick. Edwards’ SAP applications run under IBM AIX on Power Systems servers, supported by IBM DB2 and an IBM storage area network using a DS8000 array and Tivoli Storage Manager.

IBM states that its Warwick recovery centre is backed by full uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and generators.

According to a source, the power failure occurred at 2.20pm on April 30th and was, unfortunately, followed by a generator failure. This lengthened the outage period, which was then extended by the need to start systems in a regulated sequence. It meant customers with mission-critical systems hosted at the data centre could not use those systems for several hours.

Our source said a Mastercard processor was hit. Its services were back by 19.30, five hours later, but then it was not really prepared for a power outage of this nature.

An IBM spokesperson said: "There was a short interruption to the power supply yesterday, which was quickly resolved. We are working closely with clients to resolve any outstanding issues." ®

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