Hosting company customers hit by test failure

In a statement, Redbus reported that they were testing the generators when a fault developed in related switchgear at their Harbour Exchange facility.

It appears as though an electrical component was dislodged during the testing which subsequently caused a short circuit and a switch over to the UPS power supply.

Unfortunately, this fault caused a cascade failure which also affected the alarm systems resulting in the building being evacuated and meaning that staff was unable to continue working to restore services while they awaited the ‘all clear’.

As a result the UPS power backups ran down and two floors lost power completely as Redbus technical staff were stranded outside the building. Even though the initial power problem was quickly identified it was not until 7:15pm that the systems were fully restored.

Redbus have also stated that they intend to decommission the old infrastructure and move customers to a new, upgraded system to help prevent a reoccurrence of the issue.

Power issues have over the last year been an increasing concern for planners as power industry sources have been forecasting an increase in power disruption in the UK and elsewhere and citing the large power failure in South London last year as an example of what the future may hold with widespread disruption and long lasting effects for many organisations.

In last years disruption one company suffered major disruption lasting for many months after the London power loss caused serious data problems with their Customer Records and Billing system which meant the loss of many records and which severely affected the operation for many months. Many months after the event the systems were still dealing with the issues created by the incident and suffering costs incurred which severely affected their financial performance.

The experience of Redbus and those other organisations adversely affected by power disruptions clearly shows the importance of ensuring that the BCM programme fully addresses power issues within the plan. Indeed, our latest research shows that there has been a sharp increase in the number of events causing loss of IT and Telecommunications capability (from 25% to 41% and 20% to 28% respectively) with much of the underlying cause being attributed to an increase in power related issues. Through this research we also uncovered that some 58% of organisations reported that they were adversely affected by ‘Utility Outage’ again indicating the increasing scale and frequency of the power problem.

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