AliCloud services had a 12-hour interruption due to an unknown breakdown in their central office, triggering major concerns regarding the reliability of China's biggest Internet provider, Alibaba Group.
Despite eliminating problems connected to power failure, broken cables and fire, Alibaba still was unable to determine the root of the problem, according to Caixin.com.
Alibaba took a lot of time resolving technical issues leaving observers shocked, as they expected such problems to be resolved in just a matter of minutes.
AliCloud users started having trouble with accessing its database at 9:10 a.m. on June 21. This was followed by the company stating that a technical problem took place at the central office. They promised to attend to the problem as soon as they could.
The breakdown and prolonged repair time on the power failure caused false fire alarms that led to the need of a comprehensive office building check, to rule out fire risks before repairs could be carried out.
Contradictory to the company's statements, an anonymous insider, who belonged to the repair team, tipped that there was neither a power outage nor a fire at the office building, reported Caixin. This was later confirmed by a Caixin reporter who checked that there were no records of fire reported for the building that day.
AliCloud countered that the power failure happened at the floor of the central office, and not on the entire building, but everybody in the building was evacuated by the administrator for safety purposes, causing delays in the repairs.
Still, insiders and critics felt AliCloud was not being transparent and honest in handling this problem, and also expressed dismay over the amount of time AliCloud took to repair the system, stating that a data center should minimize the total time of disruptions to less than 1.6 hours per year, as per Tier3 standards, or less than 30 minutes, according to the strictest Tier 4 standard.
Both AliCloud and Tencent Cloud, which have headquarters in Hong Kong, reported that they intend to build a backup center in the city.