Google Cloud and Oracle servers in the UK suffered cooling-related outages on Tuesday as the country experienced record-breaking heat reaching 40 degrees Celsius. Both companies blame the temperature for the unexpected shutdowns.
on his Google Cloud status pageGoogle notes that it has experienced a “cooling-related outage” at one of its UK-based data centers. “This caused a partial capacity outage in that zone, leading to VM [virtual machine] cancellations and loss of machines for a small number of our customers,” said Google. The company adds that it has also “turned off” some of its machines to prevent further damage.
As indicated by The register and beeping computerOracle has a similar message for customers on the status page but directly cites “unseasonal temperatures” in the UK as the cause of the outage. The software company shut down some of its machines earlier today to prevent system outages, but the latest update indicates the service is slowly coming back online. Oracle says temperatures in the data center have “reached workable levels,” but it is still in the process of repairing the cooling system.
While it’s unclear how many users are affected by both outages, the outages could cause problems for users who use Oracle and Google Cloud services to host their websites.
Britain’s infrastructure is simply not built to handle extreme heat, which is unusual for the country, even in summer. In addition to crippling data centers, the heat disrupted travel across the country, forcing the runway at London Luton Airport and causing railroads to bend and break. It too caused forest fires in several areas in the UK, including London, Kent, Cornwall and Pembrokeshire. As the effects of climate change continue to ripple around the world, scorching heatwaves could become something the UK will have to adapt to.