Power outage at MainOne data centre affected Nigerian banks

What happened

On 9 October 2024, MainOne suffered a one-hour power outage at its MDXi II data centre in Lekki, Nigeria, TechCabal reported. The outage took several Nigerian banks offline. The report said millions of customers could not access banking services, and that a person familiar with the matter said at least three tier-1 banks were affected. A person with direct knowledge told TechCabal that a faulty circuit breaker caused the outage.

MainOne did not comment. The same report says MDXi Lagos has a power capacity of 600 kW and uses utility supply and diesel generators. It also said a person familiar with the matter claimed redundancy had been set up to avoid a repeat. That claim is not confirmed.

Contributing factors

TechCabal reported that a person with direct knowledge said a faulty circuit breaker caused the outage. MainOne did not comment, and the cause is not independently confirmed.

Lessons learned

1. A short power failure at a data centre can take client online services offline even where utility supply and generators are part of the site design.
2. Operators should be able to show how backup power paths respond if a circuit breaker fails, and should test that response.
3. Clients that rely on one data centre or connectivity provider should plan for a brief power loss that interrupts customer services.

Source

techcabal.com