Google Cloud power problem in London disrupts UK banks, courts video platform and delivery firms
Google said a "power event" in one zone of its London cloud region caused an outage on Tuesday that affected services including Revolut, Lloyds, HSBC and the courts' video platform. Google said most workloads had recovered by the afternoon UK time.
An outage in Google Cloud’s London region on Tuesday 20 October disrupted online services at several UK banks, the courts’ video platform and delivery companies, according to the BBC and Computer Weekly.
Google said “a power event caused an outage within europe-west2-b zone”, one of three zones in its London region. Problems appeared on its service health dashboard shortly after 7am UK time, Computer Weekly reported. Google later said the power event had been mitigated and that it was “seeing the recovery of services for most workloads”. In a 3pm UK time update, Google said the issue was affecting “a very small number of customers”. Its status page lists the incident as closed after 7 hours and 52 minutes.
Revolut, Lloyds, Halifax, HSBC, DPD and Royal Mail were among the companies that reported problems, according to the BBC and CNA. Revolut said “all our customers’ money and data are safe”. Lloyds said: “We understand the root issues have been resolved, so we expect all our services to be back to normal soon.”
The Criminal Bar Association said barristers in England and Wales could not “proceed with trials and other hearings” while the courts’ video links were down. The Ministry of Justice said in the afternoon that its systems were not yet fully restored, Computer Weekly reported.
Google said it would publish an analysis of the incident after its internal investigation.
Sources
- Google Cloud power event knocks out UK banks, courts and couriers · Computer Weekly
- Google Cloud says services are recovering after outage hit banks, businesses, and courts · BBC News
- Google Cloud services largely back up in UK; Revolut services remain disrupted in Singapore · CNA
- Google Cloud Service Health: Europe · Google Cloud
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