Website and Res System Down

[jimntx]

This is what remains a mystery to me. I'm not hugely knowledgeable on Main Frames and their applications, but I'm not a nit wit either. These systems operate in real time same as a bank, the backup, redundancies and security are similar. So I'm having a hard time understanding how this happened even with a lightning strike.

Having been in the business I also question that unless they are not taking real time backups. Some companies years ago tried doing the backups via tape (now I'm dating myself) once a day or once a week. Most discovered that is not often enough for critical data. When you have hundreds of res agents answering the phones every minute and thousands of copies of the website being displayed for people booking their own reservations, an hour's worth of transactions is too much to lose. Losing a whole day can be disastrous.

 

[700UW]

Same thing just happened to UA, all flights not operating cause of computer shut down.

NYT

 

[LD3]

Must be down again, no kiosks in CLT, all BP's being written by hand....hundreds standing in line at the counter.....WTF!!!

 

[700UW]

Here they go again:

US Airways is experiencing a computer outage at its CLT hub. We're working with our computer service providers to determine and repair the cause of the outage. Customers traveling to/from Charlotte, N.C. today, Sunday, June 19, should expect delays and longer than usual lines. Please check flight status and check in on usairways.com or call 800 428 4322 for more information and updates throughout the morning.

 

[LD3]

Last night it ws PHL....Should heads be rolling?

 

[SparrowHawk]

Last night it ws PHL....Should heads be rolling?

Living in the Upper Midwest now we've had an awful lot of weather of the thunder and lighting variety. That coupled with the UA outage is making me take a wait & see approach.

The underlying technology is older than dirt and I'm sure that's not helping. Some of these systems were around when Jesus was in diapers

If another airline system crashes or UA goes down again then you have to ask some serious infrastructure questions as a lot of this stuff is contracted out. Who knows maybe the outsourcing company is cutting corners?

 

[700UW]

There are hackers who have disrupted major companies and government web pages lately, even the CIA was hacked.

Makes you wonder?

Sony, and lots of other major corps have been hit, who is next?

 

[28L_or_10R?]

Last night it ws PHL....Should heads be rolling?

They'll just blame the problem on some fleet service agents and fire them.

 

[Harry Callahan]

Computers are back up in Clt now but according to local news had been down since 8A. This is one ...... up place.

 

[SS255]

There are hackers who have disrupted major companies and government web pages lately, even the CIA was hacked.

Makes you wonder?

Sony, and lots of other major corps have been hit, who is next?

I'm going to go with this theory, although I sincerely hope that I am wrong. Two airlines' computer systems experiencing failures in such quick succession? Seems a bit too coincidental to me.

Just remember that a computer outage is far less damaging to a corporate brand than the admission that your internet security measures were insufficient. No corporation ever wants to admit that they are vulnerable to hacking, but the hard truth is that every corporation is vulnerable to hacking. These hackers are very savvy, and will always be one step ahead of even the most sophisticated I.T. infrastructure. And if it was a hack, US is certainly not going to admit to it until they are absolutely sure of what caused the outage.......nor should they.

 

[redheadtempe33]

I'm going to go with this theory, although I sincerely hope that I am wrong. Two airlines' computer systems experiencing failures in such quick succession? Seems a bit too coincidental to me.

Just remember that a computer outage is far less damaging to a corporate brand than the admission that your internet security measures were insufficient. No corporation ever wants to admit that they are vulnerable to hacking, but the hard truth is that every corporation is vulnerable to hacking. These hackers are very savvy, and will always be one step ahead of even the most sophisticated I.T. infrastructure. And if it was a hack, US is certainly not going to admit to it until they are absolutely sure of what caused the outage.......nor should they.

I'm not one to go for dark plots or conspiraces but I find it very odd as well that two major airlines would go down in such quick succession. US or UA would not admit it in public (and I doubt the government would want them to), but I really have to wonder at this point what is going on.

 

[700UW]

The government admitted the CIA was hacked, I would think that is a wee bit more important than two airlines.

 

[john john]

be one step ahead of even the most sophisticated I.T. infrastructure.

Not to worry

 

[SparrowHawk]

I'm not one to go for dark plots or conspiraces but I find it very odd as well that two major airlines would go down in such quick succession. US or UA would not admit it in public (and I doubt the government would want them to), but I really have to wonder at this point what is going on.

Here is the thing. Most airlines outsource much of their IT support. EDS supports SABRE & SHARES.

I don't know if UA/CO have integrated their res system and UA has IIRC Galileo and CO has the ever unpopular SHARES as does US. So the question then becomes where did the UA & US issues occur?

Maybe EDS dropped the ball and SHARES wet the bed? The applications are so old that a great many posters here were not yet born when the original programs came on line. Over those past 40 years the original applications have had so many upgrades/patches that who knows what happened.

I don't think there was any hacking as legacy systems aren't very sexy in terms of effort to crack them or what one might find. OTOH if you're trying to damage the airline industry then it could very well be possible.

 

[700UW]

CO shares is not unpopular, they have the full version with all the bells and whistles, nothing like the cheap bare boned US version.

CO does not and never had the issues with SHARES that US has, and CO is way bigger than US.