EMC SAN at centre of state meltdown

An EMC DMX-3 storage area network (SAN) array has been blamed for a systems failure that impacted 27 of the 89 agencies operated by the US state of Virginia.

The failure began last Wednesday after the SAN and a second redundant service was knocked out, paralysing some of the state's core services, including the Department of Motor Vehicles' 74 customer service centres, which today remained unable to process drivers licences or ID cards.

Although services at 24 of the 27 agencies have been restored, the DMV, the Department of Taxation and the State Board of Elections remain out of action, according to shared service provider Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA).

EMC has assured VITA that such an event was "highly unusual" and "unprecedented".

"Teams and staff from the affected state agencies, the Virginia Information Technologies Agency, Northrop Grumman and EMC continue to work around the clock to correct the situation," VITA said in a statement issued yesterday.

A root cause analysis is expected to be conducted by an independent third party.

According to local paper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia's Governor Bob McDonnell wants an independent inquiry into the cause of and response to the outage.

Virginia's key service provider is expected to face penalties of $100,000 for the outage.

According to a report by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, VITA's 10 year US$2.4 billion services contract was already in jeopardy, with the provider missing key deadlines for the state's technology transformation program.