UniSuper, one of Australia’s leading superannuation funds, and Google Cloud issued a joint statement on May 8, 2024, regarding a significant disruption to services experienced by UniSuper members. UniSuper CEO Peter Chun and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian expressed their sincere apologies to all affected members, acknowledging the frustration and disappointment caused by the outage.
The disruption stemmed from an inadvertent misconfiguration during the provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services, leading to the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription. Thomas Kurian clarified that this was an isolated incident, unprecedented in Google Cloud’s history, and steps have been taken to prevent such occurrences in the future.
Despite UniSuper’s duplication measures across two geographies for protection against outages, the deletion of its Private Cloud subscription resulted in disruption across both regions. However, through extensive collaboration and partnership between UniSuper and Google Cloud, efforts were focused on restoring all core systems promptly.
The restoration process involved an extensive recovery of UniSuper’s Private Cloud, encompassing hundreds of virtual machines, databases, and applications. Fortunately, UniSuper had backups in place with another service provider, which minimized data loss and significantly aided in the restoration efforts.
Importantly, Google Cloud confirmed that the disruption was not caused by malicious activity or a cyber-attack, ensuring that no UniSuper data was exposed to unauthorized parties as a result of the incident.
As UniSuper and Google Cloud continue to work towards full service recovery, members can be assured that measures are being implemented to prevent similar disruptions in the future.
Conclusion:
The joint statement from UniSuper and Google Cloud provides insight into the root cause of the service disruption and outlines the collaborative efforts undertaken to restore services. With an emphasis on transparency, the statement reassures members that steps have been taken to prevent future occurrences, underscoring the commitment of both organizations to the security and reliability of UniSuper’s systems.
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