Fujitsu Perth data centre suffers power outage

Fujitsu's Perth data centre suffered a major power outage on Sunday following fierce thunderstorms, affecting customers including WA Health.

The company's general manager of data centre service, Michael Gunton, told iTnews that the Malaga facility experienced two incidents during storms that swept across the metropolitan area.

He said the first incident lasted 1.5 hours and saw the WA fire brigade attend the facility.

Though back-up systems responded as designed, a second failure occurred within an unspecified control system, leading to a more sustained outage.

"The protection mechanisms of the data centre kicked in to protect the computer equipment and site safety, causing an interruption to service," Gunton said.

"It is important to note that protecting customer data was our primary concern throughout the event."

He was unable to confirm if the outages were caused by lightning strikes. An investigation is currently underway.

Western Australia's Health department, which has IT housed in the Fujitsu data centre, confirmed to iTnews that it had experienced issues following the facility's power outage.

Bankwest - which is an anchor tenant of the Malaga facility - is also suspected to have been impacted after its ATM network, online and phone banking and EFTPOS services went down for 12 hours yesterday.

It blamed an unspecified power outage in one of its data centres, but a spokesperson declined to confirm if the facility was Fujitsu's.

Bankwest began decommissioning its other facilities when it moved into the Malaga data centre in 2010.

Bankwest assured customers that their funds were secure.

Power company and supplier to the Perth region, Western Power, told iTnews 52 customers in the suburb of Malaga - which hosts the Fujitsu facility - were left without power. It was unable to provide details of the fault.