Australian Heat Wave Knocks Out Perth Data Centre

Record-breaking temperatures in Western Australia knocked out a data centre in Perth this week.

Internet Service Provider iiNet reported that the heat, soaring to 44.4C, literally broke the Internet for its customers as its data centre in Perth struggled to cope with the heat.

Perth data centre

The iiNet Twitter account confirmed the event on January 5. The firm said: “Due to record breaking temperatures, iiNet Toolbox, Email and our Corporate Websites are unavailable. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

“Some customers outside of WA (Western Australia) may be offline due to ongoing issues with heat in our Perth data centre. Updates as we have them.”

Thousands of customers were left without internet services. iiNet call centres were also affected. The problem started around 4.30pm AEDST (Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time).

A spokesperson for iiNet said on Monday: “Although redundancy plans ensured over 98 percent of customers remained unaffected, some customers experienced issues reconnecting to the internet. These issues have now been resolved.”

iiNet is Australia’s second largest DSL internet provider, and frustrated customers took to social media to complain, arguing that Australian-based service providers should be more than prepared to deal with the heat. iiNet said that a fault in the air conditioning systems was to blame.

Services were restored by 11pm AEDST, almost a 7-hour outage.

Monday was Perth’s hottest January day on record since 1991, and hot weather is forecast for the rest of this week.

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