Optus – Do they have a disaster recovery plan?
Optus, one of Australia’s leading Telcos, just experienced a massive outage that started at exactly 4:05 AM on Wednesday, November 8 caused by a routine software update that went wrong, affecting millions of their customers.
It even impacted the public transport system (connected to their network) making things even worse for businesses; Not only could they not contact their staff, but their staff could not travel.
It remains to be seen what economic implications this will have for Optus. Certainly, there would be many considering moving to one of their competitors.
The routine software update that derailed Optus is pretty standard and would have been executed regularly. This time it failed. Now the question here is (aside from why it failed) is what do they need to do in the event this happens again?
Disaster Recovery Plan
A disaster recovery plan is a document prepared by an organisation that contains detailed information or instructions on how to recover from an unplanned incident, disaster or any other disruptive event.
Disruptive events cause loss, loss in revenue and create unsatisfied customers. This can be a very long road to recover from. A DRP will minimise the disruption if it is well-planned and put into action in a timely manner.
The Implications
We are now living in an information age where almost everything is being run by an internet network from home devices to our pocket devices, even our watch. Connectivity is critical to how society operates. Any downtime has an impact that can range from a brief nuisance to an individual to financially ruinous to an organisation.
Until now, Optus has not divulged exactly what went wrong with the update process. These unanswered questions do not play out well for Optus’ reputation given their recent data breach because of a cyber hack.
One thing that is known and this will play out in the coming weeks and months, is that this ‘strike two’ for Optus will lead to a loss in their customer base.
Optus, one of Australia’s leading Telcos, just experienced a massive outage that started at exactly 4:05 AM on Wednesday, November 8 caused by a routine software update that went wrong, affecting millions of their customers.
It even impacted the public transport system (connected to their network) making things even worse for businesses; Not only could they not contact their staff, but their staff could not travel.
It remains to be seen what economic implications this will have for Optus. Certainly, there would be many considering moving to one of their competitors.
The routine software update that derailed Optus is pretty standard and would have been executed regularly. This time it failed. Now the question here is (aside from why it failed) is what do they need to do in the event this happens again?
Disaster Recovery Plan
A disaster recovery plan is a document prepared by an organisation that contains detailed information or instructions on how to recover from an unplanned incident, disaster or any other disruptive event.
Disruptive events cause loss, loss in revenue and create unsatisfied customers. This can be a very long road to recover from. A DRP will minimise the disruption if it is well-planned and put into action in a timely manner.
The Implications
We are now living in an information age where almost everything is being run by an internet network from home devices to our pocket devices, even our watch. Connectivity is critical to how society operates. Any downtime has an impact that can range from a brief nuisance to an individual to financially ruinous to an organisation.
Until now, Optus has not divulged exactly what went wrong with the update process. These unanswered questions do not play out well for Optus’ reputation given their recent data breach because of a cyber hack.
One thing that is known and this will play out in the coming weeks and months, is that this ‘strike two’ for Optus will lead to a loss in their customer base.
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