back to article UK flights CRIPPLED by system outage that shut ALL London airspace

All London airspace was closed to incoming and departing traffic for just under an hour on Friday afternoon due to a computer outage at the National Air Traffic Services – Blighty's air traffic control authority. According to the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, a machine failure resulted in all airspace …

  1. flayman Bronze badge

    No uninterruptible power supply?

    1. Zog_but_not_the_first

      Quite.

      Hmmmm... Worrying.

      1. smudge

        http://www.allen-diesels.com/case-studies/civil-aviation-authority.php

        Two 16kV, 5MW diesel engines, it seems.

        Note that this is not a comment on Allen Diesels, nor am I suggesting that they are in any way at fault. I merely came across that page when searching around t'interweb to see what sort of backup power supply Swanwick has.

        1. Peter Mount

          I can't remember the name of the film off hand (it's the one about Parkes radio telescope during the Apollo 11 landing), but there they had a power failure & the Diesel backup failed due to not bleeding the fuel lines.

          Not saying thats the problem, but it could still happen.

          1. smudge

            There was a data centre (in Denmark or the Netherlands, I think), where the power supply failed.

            The diesel generator came up as it should, and powered everything for a couple of days, by which time it needed refuelling.

            The diesel tanker duly arrived - and crashed into the outbuilding, completely trashing the generator inside.

            1. Xpositor

              Quite a few years ago when I worked for a bank that was subsequently taken over by a Spanish bank, we had a UPS test one weekend. Everything worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, mid-way through the day on the Monday, all power in the building failed, knocking out the mainframes. Some herbert had forgotten to switch back over to mains power, and the generator duly ran out of diesel.

              1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

                Adding to the diesel stories, I know of a site that had diesel backup which was regularly tested. Once a month, for many years, the generator was started, fuel levels verified, etc., Unfortunately the diesel was run for about 2 minutes each time, which had the same effect as lots of short journeys in a car. When the power failed years later the generator started and took over the load flawlessly...until it warmed up. Once hot the thoroughly coked-up engine misfired, wouldn't keep speed, and spluttered to a halt. It took a head-off engine rebuild to get it back online.

          2. Jim Hague

            'The Dish'.

            Great film.

          3. HelpfulJohn

            "The Dish".

            A brilliant film. Very moving in places and full of understated Ozz/UK style humour. The Oz politicians are wonderfully inept, witless and charming.

            The American from NASA is so USAlien he's just barely credible but he is a perfect foil for the more relaxed Ozlanders, also a great straight man.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dish

            And the radio telescope's dish is still in the middle of a sheep meadow.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            The Dish? (With Sam Neill?)

          5. nematoad

            "I can't remember the name of the film off hand (it's the one about Parkes radio telescope during the Apollo 11 landing),"

            It's called "The Dish"

            I loved it when the band played what they thought was the US national anthem and it turned out to be the theme to Hawaii 5-O.

            Classic.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @smudge

          Swanwick puff piece

          Reading the page you linked to, it is the most unfortunate bit of trumpet blowing imaginable, since it is telling us that "nothing can go wrong".

          My own UPS horror story? Power cuts out briefly, battery UPS comes on line, there is a thump and a roar as the Diesel generators cut in. Then after a minute white smoke is noticed emerging from the stack by the Diesel shed, the lights flicker and there is an enormous bang. Lights go out.

          The maintenance department, the last time the standby generators were serviced, cleaned out the old oil and omitted to replace it. Subsequent inspections had apparently failed to notice that absence of oil level.

          Very soon after, the post of facilities manager was vacant.

          1. 142

            @ arnaut

            A similar thing happened, at a massive scale, at the Dublin Amazon AWS data centre a few years back http://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/item/23084-mystery-surrounds-outage-at

            They blamed a lightning strike initially but it appears to have been poorly configured failover gear.

          2. Dave Henderson 1

            Re: @smudge

            Bit of a corner-cut stand-by genset if it didn't have the basics of a low oil / low pressure cut-out before it went clunk. Even 30 years ago a decent panel wouldn't have allowed it to run up and hold without pressure being present. Then again, I used to see the most stupid cost-cutting on vital things that might only be needed once in a blue moon - then the kind of thing above would happen.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It would appear to be worse...

      One UPS can fail, as can the distribution, but you would have though something as important would have redundancy. I guess we'll have to assume that failed as well.

      Good job they're not supporting a nuclear power plant :-(

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It would appear to be worse...

        Redundancy means nothing - I work in engineering, and no matter how you plan, something always goes tits-up from little incidents.

        Have a read here:

        Normal Accidents*

        Logging in on my Slack notebook today was:

        Linicks Law: If Murphy's law can fail, it will.

        *OK wiki crap, but it reflects the paper I read on redundant redundancy once.

      2. Bartholomew

        Re: It would appear to be worse...

        I've seen where they have slowly added more load, over years, than the system was designed to handle. The zero crossover switches, switch flawlessly to they synchronised backup generators and, then fail because they are not rated to carry the larger currents. Then you need to call the sparks in to jury rig a temporary workaround solution, which takes time.

      3. Alan Bourke

        Re: It would appear to be worse...

        Nuclear power plants are designed to shut down safely with this in mind.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Nuclear power plants are designed to shut down safely

          Sure, but they still need power to do that. Dungeness managed perfectly back in 2013 when they lost all (external) power. Also helped by AGRs being very good at getting rid of decay heat with fairly modest power needs ;-)

      4. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: It would appear to be worse...

        But even at our unimportant organisation we test the diesel generator once per month, fire it up, put it under load and record the results. The only thing important thing we need uptime for is a customer service call centre.

    3. tirk

      UPS's sometimes fail, vital bits of kit sometime end up "temporarily" being plugged into the regular power supply, etc, etc.

      Just having a plan for when things go wrong isn't the same as it working.

    4. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Generator testing

      I remember one site where they tested the backup generator religiously for a few minutes every week. When a major power outage did occur and they needed to run of the genny, it failed within the hour...all that testing had run the fuel down, and nobody had thought about topping it up.

    5. ideapete
      Facepalm

      Plenty of interruptible

      UPS becomes IPS

  2. Jim Willsher

    Even my home PC is protected from a power failure. It's called a UPS. WTF?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And when

      did you last test it?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Big UPS

      Each of the backup generators is rated for 5MW. And what is the holdup life on your home PC UPS? Typically they hold up long enough for a controlled shutdown.

      Let's be optimistic and specify a 4 hour hold up time. At 5MW that's 20 000kWH. For comparison, a typical 110AH leisure battery rated at 12V can supply C/10 for about 4 hours before suffering serious damage. That's 44AH * 12V = approx 500WH.

      20 000kWH = 40 000 standard leisure batteries. That's nearly half a million times more than the 10AH unit in a typical PC UPS.

      tl;dr: storing large amounts of electrical power is very expensive, that's why we still drive fossil fuel cars.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      IN HARTFORD, HEREFORD AND HAMPSHIRE.....

      ...No one seems to have a 13 amp fuse.

      1. Test Man

        Re: IN HARTFORD, HEREFORD AND HAMPSHIRE.....

        "IN HARTFORD, HEREFORD AND HAMPSHIRE....."

        *HERTFORD - get it right!

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: IN HARTFORD, HEREFORD AND HAMPSHIRE.....

          ""IN HARTFORD, HEREFORD AND HAMPSHIRE....."

          *HERTFORD - get it right!

          Oooh, I bet that hert!

          1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
            Thumb Up

            Re: IN HARTFORD, HEREFORD AND HAMPSHIRE.....

            Oooh, I bet that hert!

            you mean, hertz!

    4. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Jim Willsher,

      What's the battery life on your UPS, to keep your PC alive? Oh, plus the phones, radios, lights, power to the other hundred PCs, links to all the radar data you need for ATC, links to airports etc? That probably takes a tad more battery than just to give 1000W at 240V to a single desktop.

      Presumably the UPS has to keep everything up long enough for the generator to fire up to keep providing power. That's assuming something hasn't gone wrong with the internal power wiring, in which case there's external power coming in, it just can't be distributed (and neither can the power from the genny).

  3. Bert 1
    Mushroom

    Get them to hold at the outer marker

    That'll sort it...

    1. Rob
      Coat

      Re: Get them to hold at the outer marker

      Bruce Willis is on his way as a backup solution, just as soon as his flight arrives.... oh wait....

      1. alexmcm

        Re: Get them to hold at the outer marker

        Picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd1ciPnTGKg

  4. SE

    "Luton airport would not comment when we contacted them."

    What a strange thing for them to get cagey about. Unless they've got a couple of shady Sheikhs and rendition flights coming in.

    Maybe somebody in the Luton area can look out of the window for a moment and check?

    1. Cripes Chief!

      Lets hope

      It goes on for a while as I live under the Luton Flight path and it would be nice to have a peaceful nights sleep for a change

    2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

      At least some stuff seems to be arriving/leadving Luton:

      http://www.london-luton.co.uk/en/flights/

      Interestingly NATS says:

      NATS can confirm that a technical problem has been reported at Swanwick air traffic control centre.

      UK airspace has not been closed, but airspace capacity has been restricted in order to manage the situation. We apologise for any delays and our incident response team has been mobilised.

      Every possible action is being taken to assist in resolving the situation and to confirm the details.

      Further information will be released as it becomes available.

      1. Test Man

        Yeah, I didn't think it was possible to close UK (or even London) airspace either, because clearly they CAN fly airplanes without radar, etc., but obviously they'd have to resort to pen and paper, and fly airplanes into the area one at a time.

  5. IglooDude

    I'm glad the air traffic control isn't considered a critical system, or it'd be a bit embarassing not having this kit wired up with emergency generator backup power.

  6. ukgnome

    Yippee-ki-yay

    Someone call John McClane

  7. Spacedman

    Lots of birds on the ground: http://www.flightradar24.com although I'm now fascinated with this glider soaring north of the Thames at 2,500ft and its getting dark... http://www.flightradar24.com/GDCFA/5066834

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I like this

      absolutely fascinating to watch.....................Must be over now though as I can see things taking off

    2. Martin Gregorie

      Its an ASK-13 dual seat training glider flying out of Booker, and now on the ground there. They usually aero-tow, so that was probably somebody taking a high tow for the last flight of the day. BTW, did you notice that you were seeing a FLARM trace rather than radar?

    3. Mrspudulike

      Thanks for the link. That has quite nicely wasted 20 minutes of a Friday afternoon that would have been spent wondering what to do....

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Friday pm

        @Mrspudulike

        " ... Friday afternoon..."

        You have probably hit on the cause of the problems.

  8. J. R. Hartley

    One does not simply..

    'Have a power failure'

  9. David Pollard

    If memory serves

    Wasn't there a problem with the power supply a few years ago? As I dimly recall, there was a component like a smoothing capacitor in the common feed and it was this that failed. The power supply went down and the UPS came up and was connected to a short; or something along those lines. Everything worked perfectly apart from an unlikely fault that no one had foreseen.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Shit happens

    We had a UPS literally blow up, chucking battery acid all over the place and catching fire. When that happens, you have to kill ALL power to the site.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Shit happens

      A time for colonial marines and nuking sites from orbit.

  11. Anonymous Custard

    12 more sleeps 'til Santa?

    Well all I can say is they've got 12 days to fix it, or my kids won't be happy if Rudolph and co don't get clearance to land.

    That said one of my kids won't be happy anyway, as the storm and power cut we had last night took out the micro-SD card in my Pi, so about 3 weeks worth of her Minecraft tweaking (since the last back-up) looks like it maybe a gonner.

    1. Salts

      Re: 12 more sleeps 'til Santa?

      @Anonymous Custard

      I had the same problem last week, it was the SD Card, pulled the data off with ApplePi-Baker(OS X) dd would work also, then wrote it back to another SD card and overwrote the boot files from the raspbian image and all was ok, it does not take long and it is worth the effort.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Everything was fine until I plugged the kettle in to make tea, and then all the lights went out.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Interesting watching in real time

    At these times flightradar24,com makes for interesting browsing. Looks like the 14:15 LHR-JFK has just taken off. A flight from Oslo to LHR made two huge circles in the north sea off Lowestoft (you can see the track if you click on a plane) while two Falcon 900s are at high altitude (40k feet) approaching the Thames. Guesses as to what they're up to on the back of a black helicopter...

  14. kazdav
    Pint

    They're now saying traffic is being restricted according to system capacity so still some inbound flights visible, but most outbounds cancelled/delayed. Presume parking will get a bit tight at LHR... Time for another beer before heading to the gate?

  15. Velv
    Pint

    Somebody booked the NATS Christmas party for tonight and in order for everyone to attend they need to close the centre...

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      It was when they turned the Christmas tree lights on. There was a loud bang. Everything was plunged into darkness, and then that sad whining sound you get as all the computers power down at once - and you know that it's going to be a loooooooonng time until everything is working properly...

      1. HelpfulJohn

        BTDT, the sudden silence as the aircon, PCs and just about everything else apart from the battery-powered exit lamps die is stunning.

        First, everyone starts talking far too loudly, then the phones start ...

        Then some wag mentions putting ten pence into the meter when everyone knows the minimum is a one pound coin.

  16. YetAnotherPasswordToRemeber
    WTF?

    Pointless latest update

    What's the relevance of the latest update that NATS use MS Windows on their desktops. From the article the restriction in airspace is as a result of a power failure in their DC, so the update seems to be totally irrelevant to the article, other than to try and associate MS with this outage!

    1. Roger Kynaston
      Joke

      Re: Pointless latest update

      BSOD of course!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pointless latest update

      Is it? Could be the dodgy update MS pushed out and the power failure is a smoke screen.

      Looking at my radar that looks pretty good.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pointless latest update

      @YAPtoR - beat me to it. I too wonder why the repeated mention of Microsoft and Windows, when the situation was apparently caused by power failure - ie failure to supply the equipment and the MS software with sufficient electrons to operate.

      It might have been better to point a finger or two at whoever was responsible for providing the power infrastructure.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pointless latest update

        Agreed. The grid was likely using Linux. Just saying.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Pointless latest update

          "likely"? That's as bad as "assuming".

    4. dogged

      Re: Pointless latest update

      That Gavin Clarke, he's such a SOFTWARE EXPERT that he knows Microsoft are responsible for all power outages.

      What a special boy he is.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pointless latest update

      Because The Register believe that linux runs on fairy dust and the breath of unicorns, whereas naughty bad Windows doesn't and therefore that's why the outage has had such an effect ...

      1. PNGuinn
        Joke

        Re: Pointless latest update

        Breath of PENGUINS you dolt. Everyone knows a unicorn will BSOD if you just so much as look it in the eye.

  17. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    FAIL

    " run by Serco, with IT outsourced to Capgemini, Amore Group Attenda, BT and Vodafone"

    What could possibly go wrong with this gang of "experts," apart from everything?

    BTW WTF is "Amore Group Attenda"?

    What do they "Attenda" exactly?

    1. Jan 0 Silver badge

      Re: " run by Serco, with IT outsourced to Capgemini, Amore Group Attenda, BT and Vodafone"

      They make sure that you attend and share the love. Perhaps they organise the Christmas party?

      1. Bloakey1

        Re: " run by Serco, with IT outsourced to Capgemini, Amore Group Attenda, BT and Vodafone"

        "They make sure that you attend and share the love. Perhaps they organise the Christmas party?"

        They attenda in persona when you no paya da billa. They breaka da kneesa and da fingersa all for your owna gooda.

        the Irish Mafa make you an offer you can't understand, this mob make you an offer with extra vowels and optional horse heads in bed.

  18. Deft

    Edinburgh

    Given I only fly a couple of times a year, pretty unlucky to be in Edinburgh trying to fly south right now. Doesn't seem too crazy in terms of delays. More funny to hear endless announcements of "problems down south" causing delays. Stupid soft southern nancy boys.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Edinburgh

      Now, did you vote Yes or No? I expect the right answer.

      1. Deft

        Re: Edinburgh

        I'm an Englishman travelling home so no choice for me. I would have voted "yes" for what it's worth!

      2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        Re: Edinburgh

        "I expect the right answer"

        Which is: they are both a bunch of lying, thieving, two-faced, thieving bastards...

    2. Bloakey1

      Re: Edinburgh

      I am flying in a few hours and there is still a lag on flights, today being Saturday and the day after the outage.

  19. chivo243 Silver badge

    Just wait until

    The backhoe grabs your main powerline, severs only half of the cable and you hear the big bang, some ups will not be happy.

    1. HelpfulJohn

      Re: Just wait until

      That actually happened where I worked, so we got two feeds from the Grid, one coming in from the left and one from the right and about as independent as they could be. With the oil-gennies and the battery packs it made the power rooms a little complicated. Interesting, though.

      I'm sure the JCB wasn't the only reason for the double feed but it did help the case.

    2. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: Just wait until

      That happened where I worked. I was studying the sky and clouds in true Fotherington-Thomas style when there was a flash at gound level and our computers died. The bang came a second later.

  20. RobHib
    Thumb Down

    One Wonders...

    One wonders how this mob would ever have managed to put the WWII squadrons of thousands of fighters and bombers into the air let alone land them--and also to do so without any IT at their disposal.

    errr.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    *DOH*

    Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: *DOH*

      "Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?"

      That's sort of what they did.

      the rest was the mopping up process.

  22. This post has been deleted by its author

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    deja vu

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/09/air_traffic_control_technical_problems/

  24. Gary F

    Any critical piece of infrastructure needs to have a site B, so even if other measures fail such as independent feeds from separate substations, UPS, and diesel generators, you should be able to fall back to site B. Obviously some people don't think the control room in question was a critical enough asset to have a site B.

    Luckily these days as far as severs go it's easy to move virtual servers from site A to site B within seconds, sometimes without any noticeable downtime. But relating to this article I have no idea if the radar and communications systems can be used from locations further afield. Hopefully lessons have been learnt and more resilience will be added. I'm just concerned if any flights in the air could be at risk if this happened again.

    1. pepper

      No, you have secondary radar and control systems(part militairy) that can take over in a emergency. Not sure what is going on right now but it might be more then just a power failure.

      I remember reading about a software error that caused the reported altitude to be wrong in a piece of software for the ATC, I think that was in San Francisco.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Yes, it was SF, and a high flying CIA plane (a U2) was somehow thought to be much lower. I did wonder if it had been flying at 65536 feet.

    2. Afernie
      Coat

      I dunno...

      "Any critical piece of infrastructure needs to have a site B, so even if other measures fail such as independent feeds from separate substations, UPS, and diesel generators, you should be able to fall back to site B. "

      Isla Sorna didn't turn out any better than Isla Nublar, to be honest,

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    threat?

    Definitely not a cyber attack then?

  26. jimbobjones

    Backup plan?

    That might explain the two AWACS I saw fly out of Brize Norton two hours ago...

    1. pepper

      Re: Backup plan?

      AWACS are indeed the backupplan, although there should always be a active secondary cover airborne, might be the replacement ships.

  27. Jon 9

    Generator stories....

    If we're on generator stories mine from experience...

    The backup generator isn't big enough to power the whole building, so there are essential and non essential supplies. The generator has a day tank with enough fuel for a few hours running and there's a bigger main tank which is below ground. There is a pump that fills the day tank from the main tank when the level drops.....

    All works great, except that the pump was connected to a non-essential supply.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Generator stories....

      This is why marine systems have a manual pump to fill the day tank as backup for when the electric pump fails. And a honking great siren connected to the level sensor.

      There are so many backup generator horror stories on this thread that one would have thought it would be a solved problem by now. But as Chernobyl showed, not enough information is shared about incidents to ensure that obvious fails don't happen. Clearly someone should write a book called Backup Generator f**kups and how to avoid them. Perhaps it will become as popular as How to avoid huge ships on Amazon.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Generator stories....

        From my work-related stories that I cannot attribute, the big problem often is no body actually testes the whole system by pulling the big red know-ended leaver that disconnects the whole building to see what happens.

        Too much risk they say! Then one day the grid goes down and they find the room full of servers stay up, but the A/C goes down as it was not UPS'd, followed in the short term by the server hardware expiring...

        1. HelpfulJohn

          Re: Generator stories....

          Actually ... during a tour given by one middle-boss, as he was explaining that under no circumstances does anyone ever, *ever* *EVER* press The Big Red Knob ... he managed to press it.

          Darkness, silence and the many pointing of fingers ensued.

          H&S, and basic sanity, required that we kept The Big Red Knob, though. We just added more "be farking careful!" notices, memoes and directives.

          If there is a failure mode, it will happen. If a certain failure mode is impossible, it will happen. If a failure mode requires human intervention to happen, *that* will happen.

        2. adam 40 Silver badge

          Testes - the whole system!

          >> actually testes the whole system <<

          Quite an appropriate remark for yet another ATC balls-up!!!

    2. fowler

      Re: Generator stories....

      I remember a similar incident where the external electronic gate to the data centre was connected to the non essential supply so that when the generator ran low on fuel after a power failure the fuel tanker sent to top it up could not get onto the site.

    3. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: Generator stories....

      "All works great, except that the pump was connected to a non-essential supply....."

      I think I maybe worked at that site. Was next to a small regional airport with a grass strip?

  28. ecofeco Silver badge

    Seriously?

    My dog could eat a box of crayons and... a better backup.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Linu, actually

    The only systems running Windows are standard office boxes for email and online shopping. The main control system runs on Linux, the issues today were down to emergency protocols regarding failure if UPS.

    AC because we're supposed to be keeping shtum about what's going on.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Generator story:Capacity planning

    Substation outside datacentre gives up the ghost.

    UPS works flawlessly.

    Generator comes on-line with no problem.

    Electricity supplier comes to do emergency repair to substation - one phase completely burnt out - fair amount for work required...

    Slight problem: generator has been sized to power the equipment in the datacentre, but for some reason, someone either forgot, or decided not to include powering the data-centre air-cooling/conditioning in the calculations. Ooops.

    So, the loading bay airlock doors are opened wide, and mobile fans brought in to get outside airflow. Engineer monitoring hard-disk temperatures of the big-iron says we can let them go up to a certain temperature, but above that, the warranty no longer applies.

    Decision was taken to void warranties - and luckily nothing happened immediately, and thankfully, there wasn't a rash of disk failures afterwards - but it had a lot of people sweating.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    5 finger pointing game

    "..small IT team, with common-or-garden IT outsourced to Serco, Capgemini, Amore Group Attenda, BT and Vodafone"

    5 different suppliers for run of the mill stuff... *roll_eyes* you can imagine the calls: The first 15 mins of the conference call will be "xyz has joined the call" followed up with "has abc joined yet" from the late comers... Its amazing they get anything done!

  32. psychonaut

    i stopped being surprised at this when...

    i read "serco"

  33. Bladeforce

    Upgraded to Windows 7?

    I'll never catch a flight again! Thats a backwards step!

  34. Daggerchild Silver badge

    Don't worry - we have backups.

    "We'd like to test the backup failover procedure please"

    "Will that disrupt operations?"

    "There is a chance we'll find something doesn't work - a lot has changed since last time"

    "Well we can't risk it then, can we. Duh!"

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    I've found the problem!

    "Air traffic services are run by a relatively small IT team with knowhow and support from Lockheed Martin. Common-or-garden tech is outsourced to Serco, Capgemini, Amore Group Attenda, BT and Vodafone."

    I bet that the real reason half of England's airspace is restricted is because all the circular finger-pointing between the group listed above has created a dangerous cyclonic rotation over the southern UK :)

  36. SimpleIT

    oops

    Well someone just proved a point. They can take down London's airspace by knocking out one machine.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Various power backup stories

    Back in the mid 2000's, a data centre outsourcer type company in central London just kept adding more and more servers until they melted their feed back to the local substation!. They had a bunch of generators but it took so long to get that cable replaced that 60 - 70% of customers moved to somewhere else.

    Global switch 2 in Docklands were doing some testing in 2008 or 2009 of their much vaunted power capabilites...... and multiple floors lost power, 3 or 4 of them iirc. At the time i was told that they get power into the building from two separate sections of the national grid (130KV straight into their own substations) and each floor has two pdu's supposedly from different rotary ups on the roof from the two different power feeds. How they managed to balls all that up I never heard.

    During some expansion work at EMC's manufacturing plant in Cork in Ireland in the early noughties a jcb hit overhead power lines and the entire plant shut down. It was about 3 weeks before end of quarter and the floor was full of Symm 4's and so when the power went the noise of all that kit spinning down was awesome.... it went on and on and on

    The last one is from when we were having pdu work done in a smallish datacentre, the electricians did all the pdu work overnight and then at 6am one very tired electrician turned off the other working pdu instead of turning on the repaired pdu.

  38. CCCP

    Diesels...

    Are a bugger.

    Many moons ago I was an airport fire engine truck driver. It is obviously pretty important they don't fail if a 747 is burning after a crash.

    So we drove them for one hour every day. Clearly not practical for a UPS scenario, but it does point the way if you really want an oil burner UPS.

    Separately, since fuel consumption is of no concern in UPS scenarios, why is petrol not considered? I suspect it's because generators are built for long term fuel efficient use.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    S**t happens

    No matter how much planning is done or what backup procedures are in place, things fail.

    Nothing can be totally 'fail safe'.

  40. -tim
    Mushroom

    Its progress! right?

    I wonder how many ATC systems were written by people who learned Object-oriented programmingfrom Booch books where the common example was an ATC system that only a programmer would ever consider. ATC systems should never have to consider where the plane is and focus on where the plane might be. Otherwise things get odd when there are failures.

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