HSBC COO ‘profoundly apologises’ for online outage

"complex technical issue"

Sounds like they've not found the problem yet.

I went to school with John, so wish him well, but he'd be much better just saying that they've not identified the problem yet.

large complex environments

It is usually imperative for there to be clear documentation on what bit does which task and the how, when and where of that bit. Sadly, given the evolutionary speed of applications these days said documentation tends to lag behind the changes to the bits. I'll add one more thing to the list on the top post.... Change in volume.

Sometimes its resource consumption and you can see it coming as you hit the end of the line, and then there is that *one* counter out there that someone coded in as a 16 bit variable.............

Don't envy the folks working on the task, as I've been in a couple of those wars over the years and its a s&!77y way to start the year off, but I hope they find it soon.

Have HSBC data centres been flooded?

Perhaps the HSBC bunker which can be found between Sheffield and Barnsley in the former mining community of Tankersley in the UK, GPS 53.48935, -1.4918, has been flooded.

It's just off the M1 and can be found by following the A61 to Wentworth Way then along Maple Road.

The locals call it "Teletubbyland" because of all the ventilation funnels surrounding the site that resemble the voice trumpets on the TV show!.

The data centre, completed in Summer 2009, has a server hall measuring 250 metres long by 100 metres wide. There is an Argon fire suppression system, along with underground fuel tanks for the two DRUPS (Diesel Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supplies), as well as a couple of dedicated electricity sub-stations.

Also in 2009 HSBC opened a new data centre "at a secret location in suburban North London" which is actually located at what was formerly an old Glaxo Smith Kline Beecham site, now known as Quadrant Park, Mundells, Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire.

Since when has Hertfordshire been called "suburban North London"?

No flooding reported there.

P.S. All those waiting for Fibre Optic services might like to know that both these sites have Fibre Optic cables described as 'thick as your wrist'.

I expect we will read about what happened in a future edition of "On Call"