British Airways Sues CBRE For Major Data Centre Outage
British Airways is suing data centre management firm CBRE Managed Services for allegedly causing the IT outage which left tens of thousands of passengers stranded in May 2017. The Mail on Sunday says the airline is taking action against the US-headquartered firm in London’s High Court.
The cost of the outage reached almost £60m, and was blamed on a “power surge” at a main data centre in Heathrow by BA, as a result of a contractor not properly operating power and backup systems, it alleges. CBRE previously confirmed it was helping BA with its enquiries, but did not take responsibility for the problem.
At the time, there were questions as to why the airline’s backup data centres did not kick-in to save the data of the airline’s operations and deliver business continuity.
A leaked email to the Press Association last year stated: “Bill Francis, head of group IT at BA’s owner International Airlines Group (IAG), has sent an email to staff saying an investigation so far had found that an uninterruptible power supply to a core data centre at Heathrow was over-ridden on Saturday morning.
“’He said: ‘This resulted in the total immediate loss of power to the facility, bypassing the backup generators and batteries. This in turn meant that the controlled contingency migration to other facilities could not be applied. After a few minutes of this shutdown of power, it was turned back on in an unplanned and uncontrolled fashion, which created physical damage to the system, and significantly exacerbated the problem.’”
BA’s investigation into the problem and its conclusions have still not been made public. Nor BA or CBRE have commented on the reported legal action.
The outage is said to have affected 75,000 passengers who were able to claim for delayed and cancelled flights, along with expenses accrued as a result of their inconvenience.
British Airways has since said it has invested in new data centre capacity to help avoid similar problems.
The amount of cash BA is after has not been disclosed but it will be significant considering the damage to its data centre and the thousands of passenger compensation claims that rolled in.
source dataeconomy
Industry: Data Centre News
Latest Jobs
-
- Public Sector Cyber Security Sales | UK
- England
- N/A
-
Public Sector Cyber Security Sales | UK UK | Remote / Hybrid A cyber security provider is seeking a Public Sector Sales professional to drive growth across UK government and public sector organisations. Must have current Cyber Security sales experience. Responsibilities Generate new business selling cyber security solutions into UK public sector Build relationships with CIO, CISO and senior technology stakeholders Manage the full sales cycle from opportunity to contract close Develop pipeline across central government, local government and public sector bodies Support bids, tenders and framework opportunities Experience Proven cyber security sales experience in the UK Track record selling into public sector organisations Familiarity with CCS, G Cloud or other government frameworks Strong stakeholder engagement and deal management skills Location UK based Security Requirements Eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance
-
- Security Architect | MoD - Security Cleared. OUTSIDE IR35 | Hampshire
- N/A
- Outside IR35
-
Security Architect | MOD | Security Cleared | Outside IR35 | Hampshire Commutable The successful candidate must be willing to undergo DV Clearance, ideally already holding active clearance. You will produce high and low level security architecture documentation, guiding and validating designs for systems deployed within sensitive environments. The role requires providing specialist security input into solution design, service transition and change initiatives, working closely with engineering, operations, client and third party stakeholders. You must have current hands on architectural experience, including VMware secure platform design and virtualisation architecture, alongside AWS expertise. This is an outside IR35 contract- 6 month rolling. Part of a longer term MoD project
-
- Active Directory | RBA engineer | UK Remote | SC Clearable
- United Kingdom
- N/A
-
Technical Active Directory (AD) and RBA specialist needed to play a key part in complex, enterprise scale Active Directory and access transformation programmes. You will work alongside senior team, helping reshape access models, modernise legacy directory structures and strengthen security posture across secure environments. This is hands on delivery within high impact projects where your work directly improves access control, compliance and operational resilience. Active UK Security Clearance required. This is a remote role with client travel. Implementation of Role Based Access Control across large AD estates Restructuring complex permission models, security groups and delegated access Supporting domain controller upgrades and core directory improvements Applying security hardening standards and remediating audit findings Enhancing authentication, policy and access governance frameworks Troubleshooting and resolving technical AD challenges within live environments Producing robust technical documentation and identifying project risks You must have the following technical experience Enterprise Active Directory administration Role Based Access and permission remediation OU design and governance Group Policy management Security group delegation models DNS and DHCP services Kerberos authentication / NTLM PowerShell scripting and automation Azure AD | Entra ID Hybrid identity environments Identity Governance PAM