By Steve Ranger, 14 December 2005 12:20
NEWS
Local authorities - and the Labour Party - are still feeling the after-effects of the giant oil depot fire which has knocked out important IT systems.
Wandsworth Borough Council said two computers used to run housing benefits, council tax and housing repairs systems "are out of action" as a result of the fire in Hemel Hempstead.
It said both servers are hosted by Northgate Information Solutions whose premises back on to the oil depot.
The council launched its disaster recovery plan following the explosion and said all other council IT services are operating normally.
While recovery work continues residents are asked not to contact the council with council tax or housing benefit queries.
Haringey council has also suffered outages because of the fires. It said "administrative services" were provided though the data centre there and said: "This may result in some disruption of some payment services."
But it emphasised that other services such as refuse collection, libraries and schools are not affected.
The council said it was working with its supplier to keep any administrative delays to a minimum.
The Labour Party also had to replace its normal website, with a posting on its temporary site noting "part of the office of our hosting company were extensively damaged, resulting in the loss of our site. We will be back online as quickly as possible".
IT companies Northgate and 3Com and online fashion retailer ASOS were some of the businesses affected by the blast on Sunday morning.
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. Rob.P
NTL services in the area were also affected. I had only been using my new upgraded 10Mb line for a day!
I was more upset that I was awake at 6am on a sunday morning though ;-)
(Well done to all the emergency services that were involved, they did a truely amazing job, sod what the FBU says, prehaps the chaiman shouldn't throw parties with 2 grand bottles of wines paid out of union funds, there might be a bit more money for essential stuff then)
2. Dr Garry E Hunt
The lack an immediate back system to support clients IT services is an unacceptable error in 2005. No contact should be accepted in such circumstances.
My younger daughter is a patient in the Royal Brompton Hospital which was severely affected. This is very poor.
3. John Rutter
What sort of Disaster Recovery plans take that long to put in place?
Shame that the tax payers aren't getting a good service, but I'm sure the companies that offer it make money on the deal.
Service credits due to the council for non-delivery of D.R. capability? Or did the council agree to a poor plan in the first place?
4. Dale Mead
My wife works with the NHS in Portsmouth. Their entire audiology database access system has been out of action since the blast with no resolution in sight so it's back to the good olde paper and pen!
5. Dr Garry E Hunt
(Revised) The lack an immediate back-up system to support clients IT services is an unacceptable error in 2005. No contract should be accepted in such circumstances.
My younger daughter is a patient in the Royal Brompton Hospital which was severely affected. This is very poor.
6. anonymous
We outsourced NIS to run our IT systems 7 years ago - and got 7 years of poor service. Luckily, we got rid of them this year.
I does not suprise me that they could not even organise their own DR properly.
I hope all organisations who relied on NIS learn their lesson, and find a reliable supplier
7. anonymous
I visited the Northgate site a while ago when they had a fire drill. Being evacuated from a potential fire to an area 10 metres from a huge oil storage tank did nothing for my respect for their emergency procedures.
8. Jon Pennycook
MacDonalds are suffering from shortages according to signs outside their outlets - no doubt because their main supplier is quite close to the oil depot.