Originally Posted by
Mac the Knife
I have some, relatively small scale, experience in such matters and no "Power Surge" short of a massive nuclear EMP, is going to take out my systems.
All this hand-waving about "power surges", as if it were some kind of excuse, is a straight out lie (even if it were true, which we know was another lie). A big essential system like BA's should properly be architected in such a way that NOTHING will take it right down for days on end.
Degraded for a few hours has to be the worst case scenario.
There is simply no excuse at all that would cut it with any competent systems manager - ergo, they had no competent systems manager either in house or out.
And for any big company to outsource their IT management is very very foolish. One largish company that I am familiar with has someone reasonably senior in their server room 24/365 and at least two other branches with spare capacity to take over within minutes.
Incompetence, lies, injudicious outsourcing and penny-pinching on one of their core resources.
Plain stupid.
The 'power surge' excuse worked - it convinced the engineering illiterate CEO and he passed it onto the media who have even less engineering knowledge.
We will find out eventually what caused the problem and it will almost certainly have only the most tenuous link to power supply.