Internet outage illustrates lack of resilience at heart of critical services
This morning’s 45-minute internet outage which knocked out the Gov.UK domain – as well as a string of publishers and other websites – cannot easily be dismissed as an isolated event. It also demonstrates a lack of resilience at the heart of critical government services.
Anybody wanting to book a Covid test in the late morning on Gov.UK would have struggled. There is an alternative method by phone, but who knows the number to call: 119? Government services once delivered by form and post, then call centres, now only really exist through online connections.
The problem appears to have stemmed from Fastly, a website provider that, ironically, exists to prevent outages. Once Fastly discovered the cause, the company released a fix, and it will have been a relief that the problems lasted for less than an hour.
What is unclear is if the government or any of the other websites affected had an alternative solution that would have allowed them to be back online promptly.
