According to a review, a number of the States of Guernsey's IT outages were caused by a lack of backup systems and reliance on outdated equipment.
Between November and January, four data outages brought down internal systems and the States website due to the failure of air conditioning and power units.
In its investigation, PwC discovered long-standing worries about the data centers.
It advised swift action from the States to stop further outages.
The Policy and Resources Committee's President, Deputy Peter Ferbrache, said, "The review is quite clear, there are failings we must acknowledge and actions that were overlooked that could have prevented these outages.".
"The review emphasizes the need for a better, more resilient IT infrastructure and that we need to move more quickly toward it.
"While the consequences of these outages could have been much worse, this does not lessen the gravity of the difficulties that were encountered by numerous government services.
"Right now, we need to move quickly, and we are doing so in order to increase resilience and lower the likelihood of future incidents. ".
When questioned, he admitted he had no idea what it would cost to accelerate the IT transformation program.
Problems are noted.
- delayed transition of outdated systems to new data centers.
- Who was in charge of the outdated data room equipment was unclear.
- unreliable maintenance.
- No backup plan in place.
- After two "near miss events" at the hospital's data center and the Edward T. Wheadon House, no actions were taken.
- Platforms were not moved between locations automatically as planned.
- The air conditioning wasn't sturdy.
- Uninterruptible Power Supplies didn't perform as they were supposed to.
- The installed generator wasn't functioning.
- It was ineffective to monitor and alert the equipment in the data rooms.
The 10-year contract that was signed with IT provider Agilisys in 2019 did not cover ownership of the data center infrastructure and responsibility for maintenance, according to the PwC report.
This can be seen, for instance, in the failure of one of the two air conditioning units at the Sir Charles Frossard House dating center in June 2022, which was left unfixed when the second unit failed in November.
The Uninterruptible Power Supplies and generator maintenance agreements had run out in 2020 and 2021, respectively, and the hardware had only been covered by a data storage support agreement since 2020.
PwC made 30 recommendations, including reviewing the contract to find any other unclear clauses and deciding who would be in charge of the backup power and air conditioning.
The chief executive of Agilisys, Andrew Mindenhall, stated: "We know that outages like these are not what islanders expect, and we're committed to working with the States on implementing its plan to increase resilience and reduce risks.
. "
