Problem with Australian Datacenter

[Manwe]

*UPDATE*: Server back up and running.

We are writing to give you some information on the service interruptions some of you may have experienced lately. For the past 17 hours, our Australian server - sc300.com as well as the virtual server virtuaau, has been undergoing an urgent maintenance due to a major outage of an important international backbone.

The main reason for the extensive downtime is an incidental problem with the server RAID configuration, which is now being sorted out.

We would like to assure you that our administrators are working round the clock to resolve the issue and get the server back online as soon as possible.
We are in constant communication with the Data Center staff and they are also working on getting the problem rectified. We are unable to provide a time frame yet but as soon as we have further information about this issue we will update you.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this totally unpredictable event, and the disruption of service to our customers accounts on this server. Thank you for your understanding regarding this matter.

[syownet]

So am I understanding correctly the issue was two fold?

1. International Backbone Outage
2. RAID failure?

How did both result in what will be 27 hours (17+10) of downtime? Which is over 3 times the downtime allowed by the SLA.

[Oliver]

The RAID problem occurred because our administrators attempted to reboot the system not knowing that there is a connection problem. We then lost connection to the server. The initial problem was caused by the backbone outage and the rest was due to the lack of exact and accurate information from the data center staff about the nature of the problem. Now we are left with a broken RAID and we are accessing the server through a proxy as we still cannot access it directly from any of the locations that we have attempted (US, UK, Europe mainland).

So we are sorting out the connectivity issue while we are repairing the RAID at the same time. We will be investigating and evaluating the incident once we have the servers back up and running, which is our main concern at this time.

[Oliver]

Workaround implemented, server back online

We have been able to setup a workaround and restore the connectivity to the server, although the connectivity problem is stil unresolved. We are now working on getting the problem fully resolved but at least the server is now back up and running.

We will be investigating the exact reasons for this problem in details. Also, we will be re-evaluating the current network configuration and we intend to find and implement a solution within the following months, which would make our network less dependable on the specific providers and data center currently used.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and rest assured that we will take the necessary measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

[iPhone]

Thank you for the update guys.