Google's Batteries Ran Out, Revolut Went Down #googlecloud #outage #programming
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Author: Better Stack · Watch on YouTube
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Original language: English
Original video: Google’s Batteries Ran Out, Revolut Went Down #googlecloud #outage #programming · Channel: Better Stack · 01:02 · Watch on YouTube
Topics: Enterprise AI applications, AI infrastructure and hardware
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Revolut suffered a major outage after a power-grid failure at a Google Cloud data center in London. The main and backup generator controllers failed, and the batteries ran out about seven minutes later, taking one of Google’s three London zones offline. Traffic shifting to the other zones overloaded them, affecting some customers whose services depended on the failed zone. Google said most customers recovered after about six hours, while Revolut reported its service back later that evening. The incident drew regulatory attention because Google Cloud had been designated a critical third party to the UK financial system.
Key points
Section titled “Key points”- Revolut customers could not log in, transfer money, or make card payments during the outage.
- Revolut initially described the incident as a service disruption, then blamed Google Cloud.
- A power-grid failure affected one of Google’s three London data-center zones.
- Both the main and backup controllers for the diesel generators failed.
- The batteries ran out about seven minutes after the power failure, taking the zone offline.
- Traffic failing over overloaded Google’s other two zones, and some services remained dependent on the unavailable zone.
- Google said most customers had recovered about six hours later, around 1:00 p.m.
- Revolut said it was back at about 6:40 p.m.
- The chair of the UK Treasury Committee asked the Bank of England and the FCA when they were first alerted and by whom.
Chapters
Section titled “Chapters”| Start | Chapter | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | Revolut outage and Google’s London zone | Revolut’s services failed after a power-grid drop at a Google Cloud data center, and Google later published a report on the incident. |
| 00:30 | Generator controllers fail and zones overload | Both generator controllers failed, the batteries ran out, and the traffic shift overloaded Google’s remaining London zones. |
| 01:02 | Recovery and regulatory attention | Revolut reported recovery later than Google, while UK regulators and the Treasury Committee took notice of the incident. |
Quotes
Section titled “Quotes”Revolut basically stopped working on Tuesday because a generator in London didn’t turn on. — 00:00
And now Google has published a report on what happened. — 00:00
the main one and the backup, both failed. — 00:30
the sudden rush of traffic failing over overloaded the other two zones — 00:30
the chair of the Treasury Committee wrote to the Bank of England and the FCA asking when they were first alerted and by whom. — 01:02
Concepts and entities
Section titled “Concepts and entities”Revolut, Google Cloud, data center, failover, Bank of England, FCA, Treasury Committee
Full transcript (original language)
Section titled “Full transcript (original language)”00:00 Revolut basically stopped working on Tuesday because a generator in London didn’t turn on. Revolut has about 80 million customers and on Tuesday things like logging in, transfers and card payments all stopped working and people’s cards were even being declined. Revolut’s first post about this just said it was a service disruption with no cause and then that evening it blamed Google Cloud. And now Google has published a report on what happened. Just before 7:00 a.m. UK time, the power grid dropped at the data center running one of Google’s three London zones and that should be fine normally because
00:30 batteries take over and the diesel generators start up but the controllers that start the generators, the main one and the backup, both failed. So the batteries ran out about 7 minutes later and the whole zone went dark. Now having three zones in a region is meant to protect you from exactly this but Google says the sudden rush of traffic failing over overloaded the other two zones and some services were stuck waiting on the zone that was offline so customers in the healthy zones got hit too. Google says most of its customers had recovered about 6 hours later at around 1:00 p.m.
01:02 but Revolut didn’t say it was back until 20 to 7:00 that evening. Interestingly, regulators have noticed. Back in July, the UK officially named Google Cloud as a critical third party to the financial system and on the day of the outage, the chair of the Treasury Committee wrote to the Bank of England and the FCA asking when they were first alerted and by whom. Subscribe for more AI and dev news every week.