UniSuper down for 3 days

[kedar2020]

@futurelife You’ve got no idea what you are talking about might want to look at the recent history between Google and Uni Super and look at a recent project.

 

[futurelife]

@kedar2020 Cloud migration projects don't cause 5 day outages unless you've done something catastrophically wrong.

 

[kedar2020]

@futurelife https://x.com/quinnypig/status/1787792760336257153?s=46 read this. might want to retract your comments. GCP completely f’d this up.

 

[futurelife]

New update, email from the CEO:

I am writing to provide you with an update on the disruption to our services.

Firstly, let me begin by personally apologising for the outage, and thank you for your patience with our teams as they work around the clock to progressively get our systems back online.

As always, members are our top priority.

I would like to be very clear on some key points: member accounts are safe, and no data was exposed to unauthorised third parties as a result of this outage.

I would also like to reassure members that pension payments have not been disrupted and will continue as per normal. The next regular pension payment is scheduled on 15 May 2024, and is due in accounts by 17 May 2024.

We're here to help, so please get in touch with our contact centre should you require support or your question isn't covered in the frequently asked questions published on our website.

Update on restoration of services
The progressive restoration of member services will begin Thursday, 9 May 2024. Please note that some services will still be limited as we continue the restoration.

Services that we expect to have online in some capacity will include the ability to login to online services, access Mobile App, and see balances—initially as at Monday, 29 April 2024. As regular trading and investments have been continuing as normal, this will be reflected in your balance once our systems have been restored.

We will keep members informed as systems progressively come online. I commit to members receiving daily updates on the progressive restoration of services, and again thank you for your patience.

We have collated some frequently asked questions, including around lump sum withdrawals, investment switches and the operation of investments during this outage.

For up to date information, including answers to frequently asked questions, please visit our website.

What caused the technology outage?
Many members have rightly asked what exactly happened.

Google Cloud continues to investigate and gather information on the nature of this incident which caused an outage to our systems.

Let me stress that Google Cloud has provided clear assurance that this was not the result of a malicious act or cyber-attack, and UniSuper data has not been exposed to unauthorised parties because of this issue.

While a full root cause analysis is ongoing, Google Cloud has confirmed this is an isolated one-of-a-kind issue that has not previously arisen elsewhere. 

Google Cloud has confirmed that they are taking measures to ensure this issue does not happen again.

We take our responsibility to deliver secure, reliable services to our members extremely seriously. I would like to be clear that Google Cloud is not the only cloud service provider UniSuper utilises, and this planning has ensured our ability to restore services and minimise data loss.

Additional resources to support swift resumption of services
To minimise further disruption to our members as we come back online, we are putting on additional resources to work through all enquiries and member requests as quickly as possible once systems are operational again.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding, particularly with our team in the contact centre, as we work to restore services swiftly, safely and securely.

 

[truthvsmedia]

@futurelife

Yeah, it's not great. I would expect regular updates at the very least, but they have provided exactly 0 updates or transparency.

There’s a good chance the systems they use to provide updates are also out.

 

[rougepaper]

@futurelife That lack of transparency is called out here: https://www.fsunion.org.au/Hub/Cont...e-cost-of-outsourcing-UniSuper-outage-MR.aspx

One of the most frustrating parts of uni employment was having to deal with Unisuper, their lock-in of DB and inability to get any info out of them. It sounds like very little has changed.

 

[isaiah5811]

@bringchristintoeveryhour Unisuper recently a few months ago did a complete cloud migration. Till the past few years all issues were quickly rectified inhouse, which is why members never had an issue. The migration to cloud induced this risk which has now materialized, the problem i see here is they did not leave or have an onprem Business continuity mitigation for this risk.

Anyway. Rest assured they have great teams internally. If its taking this long to fix its probably something not in their immediate control.

Outsourcing is one of the reasons i left, and it seems it has come back to bite them. Specially critical components shouldnt be outsourced given the wider impact they have. That is for any public servicing company.

 

[briana0013]

@bringchristintoeveryhour Hubby and I have just joined Unisuper. His money has left his old account and we've been checking daily to see if it has landed in the new account. No idea where it is as he hadn't been able to get in since Monday.

I was able to get in late Tues and could see that some of the funds I had transferred were there but not all. Bit of a worry and of course now we're wondering if we made the right choice of funds...not a great start....

 

[zal56wes]

@briana0013

Bit of a worry and of course now we're wondering if we made the right choice of funds...not a great start....

I've been with them for 20+ years and this is the first major outage I've seen. Within the last 18 months I've been checking it much more frequently (a few times a week) solely because I'm a data nerd and track my net worth historically for detailed charting.

It'll likely be fixed as fast as possible but I wouldn't expect anything till sometime next week if the outage is as big as it appears.

 

[bringchristintoeveryhour]

@zal56wes I’ve also been with them for 12 years, my first job out of uni was at a uni. Been pretty happy with them generally.

Have been considering switching the last couple of years, mainly because of the lack of unit prices. But I’m holding out until I reach the threshold that I deem worthwhile to switch to SMSF.