TLDR
- Google Cloud restored all UK services on Tuesday after an outage that lasted several hours.
- Google blamed a āpower eventā at a third-party facility in its London region, europe-west2.
- Revolut, Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Royal Mail, DPD and NHS England were among the services users reported problems with.
- The UK put Google Cloud, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Oracle under direct oversight in July.
- Google will publish an analysis of the incident on its service health dashboard.
Google Cloud has restored its UK services after an outage that lasted several hours on Tuesday. The disruption affected digital banks, delivery firms and public sector websites.
The trouble started early in the day in europe-west2, Googleās cloud region in London. Googleās status page listed āelevated errors and intermittent network failuresā in the area.
Power Event Behind the Outage
Google later pointed to a āpower eventā at a third-party facility. It said the problem hit europe-west2-b, one of the regionās smaller data center zones.
Alphabetās Google Cloud apologised to customers and thanked them for their patience. A spokesperson said services had been restored.
Downdetector logged user reports about Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Rightmove, DPD, NHS England and Royal Mail. The site gathers reports from several sources, so real impact may vary.
Revolut said card payments and ATM withdrawals were affected. The company said customer money and data stayed safe.
More than 1,500 reports about Revolut came in shortly after 8 a.m. BST. The company later said all services were fully restored.
Lloyds Banking Group customers, including those at Halifax and Bank of Scotland, reported trouble with online banking. Lloyds said the root issues were fixed and services should return to normal soon.
HSBC said some customers had trouble reaching its services. Royal Mail said letter and parcel deliveries were not affected.
HM Courts and Tribunals Service said a video platform used for remote hearings was hit. Rightmove, DPD and NHS England did not immediately reply to Reuters.
ING Germany also reported problems with its website and app. The bank said nothing pointed to an outside cause or a third-party provider.
Effects on Customers and Firms
Revolut customer Rachael Ellen told the BBC she could not pay for parking because her account failed to work. She also could not see an incoming payment.
Guy Baybutt of The Veg Box Company said his business could not access its website to process orders. He said it also could not book parcels with DPD, which cost the firm sales.
The outage came one year after an Amazon Web Services outage took more than 1,000 sites offline, including UK banks. In July, the UK put Google Cloud, Microsoft, AWS and Oracle under direct oversight as critical suppliers to the financial sector.
EU regulators named Google Cloud among 19 critical technology providers last year. The Financial Conduct Authority said it is working with Google and affected firms to understand the impact.
Google said it will publish an analysis of the incident on its service health dashboard. Prof Feng Li of Bayes Business School said it is not yet clear what caused the power problem.
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