FNB power surge explanation questioned

Just like how people confuse megabits and megabytes. Just a lot more wrong...
 
I was wondering how long it would take for people to start having a go at FNB's ad campaign. The first sign that they didn't know what they were talking about was when they referred to kVA and lightening strikes.
 
ambo said:
I was wondering how long it would take for people to start having a go at FNB's ad campaign. The first sign that they didn't know what they were talking about was when they referred to kVA and lightening strikes.
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As the press release are done by the marketing/PR departments, I am not surprised that they got the units wrong. As for the measuring, I am not so sure that it is such specialized equipment that are necessary, and would think that any data center would have the monitoring equipment/loggers by default.
 
Silly bankers. Surely they have hardcore equipment deployed to ensure properly regulated power reaches these critical systems?
 
Typical SA situation.

The sheet continues to hit the fan, but no-one is to blame.
 
rpm said:
FNB outage power surge explanation questioned
FNB has come under fire for its explanation that a power surge took its processing centre offline last week Tuesday
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Online profile registration was fubar today. Their tech support is substandard too, I'd have to think twice before I considering moving over to a back that you can't even register online due to system issues. Especially when they punt their l33tness over other banks.
 
The 12000kVA might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure "a couple of seconds of outage" would not cause the permanent damage they experienced, as they are still running systems from their DR site at the moment.
 
There is a saying - never do math in front of crowd. I think FNB would have been wiser to leave the numbers out.

I have no doubt that a power surge occurred though.

Not sure where they could have gotten those numbers, unless they estimated it from the equipment ratings that were overwhelmed.

On City Power's side it seems like they try to draw attention to a specific detail that was communicated wrong, distracting from the fact that something real and very big went wrong, potentially on their side.

But thinking slightly more about it - FNB should not have blamed City Power so fast. Carefully investigating it a bit longer and checking the details with outside parties before communicating is always a good idea when you are about to sling mud. Who knows - the surge might have been due to defective equipment within FNB.
 
stricken said:
h4x0rs anyone?
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Hey neo quick let's reroute the power cortex from the flux capacitor to quantum regenerator....

Seriously there was a power issue. All my lights at home (3km from their DC) dipped hectically. Complete brownout. Only way for that to happen is for something nearby to pull loads of current...
 
Sinbad said:
Hey neo quick let's reroute the power cortex from the flux capacitor to quantum regenerator....

Seriously there was a power issue. All my lights at home (3km from their DC) dipped hectically. Complete brownout. Only way for that to happen is for something nearby to pull loads of current...
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Oh no, you inverted the power couplings from the dilithium crystals. Reroute power through the auxiliary plasma relays!
 
Sinbad said:
Hey neo quick let's reroute the power cortex from the flux capacitor to quantum regenerator....

Seriously there was a power issue. All my lights at home (3km from their DC) dipped hectically. Complete brownout. Only way for that to happen is for something nearby to pull loads of current...
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Indeed, this is consistent with a short circuit of some description.
 
zamicro said:
As the press release are done by the marketing/PR departments, I am not surprised that they got the units wrong. As for the measuring, I am not so sure that it is such specialized equipment that are necessary, and would think that any data center would have the monitoring equipment/loggers by default.
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Ja, PR prob screwed up the units, I am going to believe FNB's version a LONG time before City Power - who has a better track record of delivery and communication...

How could FNB not have real time power monitoring? Hell I can get that from a decent home UPS by default, how could they not have proper monitoring since it is required for their equipment?
 
Jab said:
Oh no, you inverted the power couplings from the dilithium crystals. Reroute power through the auxiliary plasma relays!
Click to expand...

Now you talking my language. dilithium crystals at maximum.
 
Bern said:
Ja, PR prob screwed up the units, I am going to believe FNB's version a LONG time before City Power - who has a better track record of delivery and communication...

How could FNB not have real time power monitoring? Hell I can get that from a decent home UPS by default, how could they not have proper monitoring since it is required for their equipment?
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I assume the monitoring is part of the UPS equipment - which went bang.
 
Finding out exact details on what happened would take time, and FNB needed to respond to it most important part of it's business: it's customers.

More than likely everything was a thumb suck.

Techie: "our surge protectors blew, they can stand 3 lightening strikes... so this must have been a big surge!"

And then it bubbled to up to someone who fudged some figures that sounded right to them and they released a statement ASAP. I wouldnt assume FNB is blaming city power for anything, they just needed to get a message across that the systems died in a way that sounds like it should never happen again.
 
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