iSAT wants R21 billion damages payment from Dimension Data

[Bradley Prior]

iSAT wants R21 billion damages payment from Dimension Data

Internet service provider iSAT has posted details of a dispute between it and Dimension Data regarding a major system failure that occurred in March 2019.

 

[r00igev@@r]

What were those guys doing worth R21B on a system that was held together with Prestick, barbed wire and cellotape? They could have build and operated their own data centres for that amount!

 

[SilverCode]

What were those guys doing worth R21B on a system that was held together with Prestick, barbed wire and cellotape? They could have build and operated their own data centres for that amount!

My guess is that R21B is projected revenue based on the project they lost. They think if they had managed to launch the product, then 5 years later they would have made R21B.

Considering they lost everything because a single cloud provider messed up, and they had no way to recover from it using off-site backups or fail-over infrastructure, I can't imagine their product would have made R21B. Someone that incompetent is not set for success.

Regardless, IS is a disaster of a company and we have endless problems with them. While I'm dubious of iSAT's claims, part of me hopes they win just to stick it to IS.

 

[Totempole]

I've always looked upon iSat as a very small player in the ISP market. In the years I dealt with them, they had a handful of staff, and you always got through to the same people when you called.

I don't know what they could possibly have been working on that had a projected value of R21bn.

 

[Gordon_R]

Legal 101:
Start with a big number, then they will be much more likely to settle for a small number.

 

[Danie_V]

Nothing wrong with good solid open source software if it is patched and updated as needed (the service portion). Would love to know why such old service was being used for a paid service. And what DD's reasons are for not having any liability. Sounds like some contract exclusions so that fine print is crucial. But even so this is embarrassing to someone - whoever was actually liable for updating the software. It's like using MS Office 2004 and just never upgrading to a new version, let alone applying security patches.

 

[Wasabee!]

I don't know what they could possibly have been working on that had a projected value of R21bn.

A government website tender

 

[jeevadotnet]

Nothing wrong running EOL open-source software, especially in the likes of openstack or ceph. If it works it works. You don't generally upgrade openstack for the sake of upgrading it even if you buy new hardware.

These iSAT guys seem stupid. Haven't they ever heard of backups? Clearly if it was such a big project they would have used another means of storing metrics as well or CI/CD platforms.

 

[Mystic Twilight]

Not keeping extra backups was isats fault, but is/dd is still to accountable for failing to uphold their hosting contract obligation on their end as I would imagine they promised 99% uptime, etc, etc, though there is probably extra fine print somewhere saying that they aren't actually at fault. Didn't mweb business also have an oopsie where all the customer vm data was lost and they sort of shrugged their shoulders and read out the fine print.

 

[system32]

Nothing wrong with good solid open source software if it is patched and updated as needed (the service portion). Would love to know why such old service was being used for a paid service. And what DD's reasons are for not having any liability. Sounds like some contract exclusions so that fine print is crucial. But even so this is embarrassing to someone - whoever was actually liable for updating the software. It's like using MS Office 2004 and just never upgrading to a new version, let alone applying security patches.

+1
Not just open source software - all outdated software.
Using outdated OS/2 or DB2 9 or Sybase 10 or Windows XP or Oracle 8i or SQL Server 2000 or Windows Server 2003, etc.

 

[rpedrica]

(iSat has been one of the most prolific spammers in SA for many years. The Opt-Out on their emails is just for show.)

In this case, the negligence seems to be on iSat's part - not keeping 3-tier backups (incl. offsite) of your data is criminal. And depending on a cloud provider for stability and data integrity is just stupid. Cloud providers regularly have issues - this is an accepted fact in the industry. Notwithstanding any contractual responsibility on DD's part, this reads like a typical iSat horror show and their spam email is a load of bosh.

 

[pinball wizard]

My guess is that R21B

Is based on the NTT value.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

(iSat has been one of the most prolific spammers in SA for many years. The Opt-Out on their emails is just for show.)

In this case, the negligence seems to be on iSat's part - not keeping 3-tier backups (incl. offsite) of your data is criminal. And depending on a cloud provider for stability and data integrity is just stupid. Cloud providers regularly have issues - this is an accepted fact in the industry. Notwithstanding any contractual responsibility on DD's part, this reads like a typical iSat horror show and their spam email is a load of bosh.

Interesting, I didnt know iSat was one of those spammers.
I still think this sounds like one of those "This new product was going to make billions but we couldnt actually get it off the ground, now we have an excuse why" type scenarios.
Im pretty sure a big tech company has lots of inhouse lawyers and access to more externally, I doubt a company like iSat can claim the same.

 

[JohnStarr]

No cloud providers automatically backup your VMs due to the attached cost. You, as the tenant, need to enable it.
However, reading the multiple HDDs failure issue, would that have even mattered, unless the backups were stored on another array and then replicated?
Also, the client should have been made aware of this, and if they were and it's in writing, then not sure they have a case. It will be interesting.
But R21 billion which hasn't been substantiated yet!?! They're a house in a suburb in PLZ, not exactly a massive company so details on that would be good in order to get both sides. The more information from all parties, the better.