8 May 2024
UniSuper and Google Cloud understand the disruption to services experienced by members has been extremely frustrating and disappointing. We extend our sincere apologies to all members.
While supporting UniSuper to bring its systems back online, Google Cloud has been conducting a root cause analysis.
Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian has confirmed that the disruption arose from an unprecedented sequence of events whereby an inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services ultimately resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription.
This is an isolated, ‘one-of-a-kind occurrence’ that has never before occurred with any of Google Cloud’s clients globally. This should not have happened. Google Cloud has identified the events that led to this disruption and taken measures to ensure this does not happen again.
Why did the outage last so long?
UniSuper had duplication in two geographies as a protection against outages and loss. However, when the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription occurred, it caused deletion across both of these geographies.
Restoring UniSuper’s Private Cloud instance has called for an incredible amount of focus, effort, and partnership between our teams to enable an extensive recovery of all the core systems. The dedication and collaboration between UniSuper and Google Cloud has led to an extensive recovery of our Private Cloud which includes hundreds of virtual machines, databases and applications.
UniSuper had backups in place with an additional service provider. These backups have minimised data loss, and significantly improved the ability of UniSuper and Google Cloud to complete the restoration.
What’s next?
UniSuper and Google Cloud have been working around the clock on a resolution. The completion of the restoration swiftly, safely and securely remains Google Cloud and UniSuper’s top priority.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Zach Relouw
PR/Media Lead
UniSuper
T: +61 3 8831 6360
E media@unisuper.com.au
Note to editors
About UniSuper:
UniSuper is one of Australia’s largest superannuation funds and is run solely for the benefit of its members. For over forty years, UniSuper has been managing super for people employed in the higher education and research sector, and as of 2021 opened the fund to all Australians. UniSuper currently invests over $135 billion on behalf of more than 647,000 members^.
^As at 31 March 2024.