In case you have been refreshing your Zenith Bank app since morning and wondering why it is not opening or at any of the bank branches but is stranded as you are told that the network is not going.
Here is why:
A fire incident at Zenith Bank’s primary data center this morning is causing network downtime and is the reason why the Zenith Bank app is not working today.
A data center is the engine room that powers the bank’s electronic transactions and IT-related services.
The data room is the reason why the bank has the service to either give you cash or solve your problem at any of their bank branches nationwide.
The downtime affects Zenith Bank’s services, leaving millions of customers in the lurch. At one of the bank’s branches, a security official could be heard telling a customer that the network was down. The security official did not provide further information.
Let’s hear Tech Cabal as they take it up from here.
Multiple sources told TechCabal that the downtime began around 7 a.m this morning. One source confirmed that the incident started after a backup power system caught fire, triggering a power cut to the data center. According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the bank is now attempting to switch to its disaster recovery infrastructure to get all services up and running. It is standard practice for big organizations to have disaster recovery protocols, but Zenith could not switch to its recovery infrastructure at the time of this report.
One source told TechCabal that the delay in switching to its disaster recovery is connected to the fact that not all banking services are running in an active-active deployment. It means that the services running on standby now have to be switched manually. The source told TechCabal that despite the delays, the bank expects to have its infrastructure up and running before the end of the day.
Today’s incident will bring conversations about moving banking infrastructure to the cloud back to the front burner. While some may argue that it may not wholly solve reliability issues, it could go some way toward helping to prevent day-long downtimes when unexpected incidents happen.
By: Chukwudi Iwuchukwu