NAB Computer "Glitch"

[Outbackmanyep]

Isn't it farcical ..... NAB makes $4.22 Billion this year and their computers suffer a "glitch" which puts all their customers into a shambles...... what a joke

[AstralTraveller]

I'm waiting for my pay to go in and I'm not sure I can even get at what is there. Luckily I have money in another account.

I wonder whether we'll get to find out just what the 'glitch' was. It would probably be over my head but there are plenty on the forum who would understand.

[AdrianF]

Oooops I hope my deposit went through OK. I just put some money in someones NAB acct to buy astro stuff.

Adrian

[Octane]

A release of software that went through a proper change window, but, wasn't tested properly; hardware failure; database failure; it could be anything.

I feel for their server admins, as I know what they're going through, working around the clock to try and rectify whatever's happened, with minimal business loss and the best possible outcome for their customers.

H

[torana68]

well its not working , I hear a guy who works with my partner received his pay today PLUS $5000!!!!! hes not spending it... but how dull.

[Peter Ward]

My first "real" job on the planet was Sysop on Perth Building society's mainframe (an IBM360...filled a room with all of 256 K of RAM!! ). While hardware may have failed, you *never* run a real time mission critical system without a last known good configuration elsewhere. One wonders what burnt NAB so badly.

I suspect someone's butt needs a boot here..

BTW I purchased a property this week that required a serious deposit to go to a NAB account.

I did the right thing, but NAB couldn't process it.:rolleyes:

If the purchase falls though as a result I suspect a call to Slater and Gordon will be next...:mad2:

[Blue Skies]

Yep, I'm a victim - no pay for me this weekend.

[multiweb]

This proves that it doesn't matter how big or how well prepared you are murphy's law still applies. Disaster recovery is a made up word like 99.9% uptime guarantee. I hate the current technology for just this. It is not reliable. Hopefully virtualisation is the answer. You cannot rely on hardware plain and simple.

[hotspur]

Is there any indication when this will be sorted out?

Certainly a cause for concern,all my business accounts with NAB.

First I heard of it,was when a chap wanted to do a Direct deposit for some

equipment he wanted to purchase of me,but could not do so.

Sounds like it could be a few days or longer,going by what I have heard.

Anybody heard anything about time to solve issue?

[rally]

I heard on the radio that NAB said it could be Monday before its sorted, but NAB branches are open this Saturday dealing out cash to help reduce the effects of their disaster.

I am amazed that they refer to this a "Glitch" !

A glitch is something minor - a trivial problem and usually its very short lived.

This is nothing like a glitch, this is systemic nationwaide catastrophic failure and nothing less.

Surely using the word glitch is purely all spin to somehow make people accept it better.

Of course that doesnt help those who can no longer manage their banking/finance etc.

I wonder who pays all the penalties and defaults on loan payments that werent paid on time as a result of it ?

[Octane]

Rally,

NAB said they would take care of penalties and fees incurred due to this outage.

H

[DavidTrap]

If only Queensland Health had done that with their payroll system??? System cost $60million to implement and projected fixit cost is $210million....

DT

[mithrandir]

If it was just hardware, it would not take this long to fix. They will have replacement hardware. This is much more likely to be a software problem, and I would expect them to have backups of everything involved to roll forward from a known good state.

Even then, in the IT business three or four days is beyond anyone's idea of reasonable time to repair.

We are working on something that has a 99.9999% availability service specification. That's less than an hour a year, and can only be achieved with an active standby to fail over to.



Were you expecting a system delivered on time and on budget? Between the time they write the proposal and the system being delivered the client's demanded feature creep ensures any relation between the contract price and the final cost is purely fortuitous.

[RickS]

This wasn't scope creep. It was pure and unadulterated incompetence. Looks like the people who knew how to implement a complex new system were overruled on many important decisions (e.g. it's too expensive to run the old system in parallel with the new one, we won't do it!)

[Jen]

:screwy: so thats why none of our transactions wouldnt work at work the other day grrrrrrrr :rolleyes:
I hate the big banks i am with our local credit union :thumbsup:

[turbo_pascale]

Just logged in to internet banking and it appears all balances are correct, and someone put money in to my account (also with nab), and it came through immediately.

Appears fixed (for me anyway)

[dugnsuz]

The guy in front of me at the bottle shop found it very difficult to pay for his Scotch and Soda with his NAB card - quite an unhappy camper and vocal too!!

[mithrandir]

I'd be surprised if all credit union transactions were working over the last few days. IIRC many of them use NAB to provide their interbank services.

[rogerg]

I've never seen anything like this.

The balance in my NAB accounts has gone up and down two times today. At the moment it's showing balance $0 for the whole of history, and several recent transactions are duplicated, and several others are missing which were there this morning! I'm stunned it could go so bad. It's like they are putting through fixes that changing it, not for the better.

[Outbackmanyep]

I bet i know who'll be paying for their shortfall from the fix up, if ever they pull their finger out!

[GrahamL]

Hope this gets fixed up soon , I noticed the atm screen at a local branch was smashed yesterday , Those on the counters this morning are going to have a rough day .

[Barrykgerdes]

What a mess the banking system is getting into. NAB is probably only the first to get into a major computer glitch. I would expect them all to have this type of problem eventually.

The reliance on computers to do what was once the "menial tasks" of banking means that no one knows how to do them manually any more. Many programs were designed years ago to handle a specific work load that is insufficient for modern usage and cost cutting procedures have reduced back up systems as well as experienced IT personnel that could probably could have fixed the problems quickly.

Barry

[Omaroo]

In the "manual" days we didn't have instantaneous electronic inter-bank processes to facilitate instant cash withdrawals from foreign bank ATMs. We didn't have eftpos. We didn't have PayPal and other similar services. You couldn't buy something from Hong Kong by credit or debit card and have it arrive three days later. You couldn't log on to your bank while at work and pop $50 into your wife's account without leaving your desk. No "manual" process is going to support these demands.

When I worked as a mainframe engineer for IBM years ago, the banks all had both "development" and "production" environments at their disposal. They still do. Major changes are all tested thoroughly in a separate world and are only moved to the live production systems when given the green light. I'm keen to hear of the "real" reasons why this happened - especially at the NAB given that they were one of my main accounts back in the early 80's.

[multiweb]

I'll go on leap here and say that I think the banks may be getting a bit of unfair bashing in Oz.:scared3: I mean they're banks right, they're no angels and they mean business first but when you see the state of the banking system worlwide I reckon we're doing ok. I don't think any of ours got bailed out with taxpayers money.

[AndrewJ]

I reckon its more insidious. And its happening everywhere.
To get better "control"/"reduce costs"/"improve service", much of our day to day systems are being "centralised"/"consolidated"/"streamlined"
Computers are generally used to remove "costly/inept" humans from the process, and maintenance "by repair" is becoming the norm.
Ie its cheaper to fix a problem than prevent it happening.
Only problem now is the systems are so big and all encompassing that a minor glitch can now bring down even countries and noone really knows what the systems do.
Whilst its all wonderful when it works, the cost when it fails is going to get higher and higher.
I always liked Hazel O'Connors Eighth day as a homily to whats happening.

Andrew

[hotspur]

Love that emit-com Marc.

I think your right,the banks do getting a pizzling.But look at the things we can do now,that Chris points out.There is no way in the eighties could the man on the street buy a camera from HK,and have it delivered within 3 days,And save a considerable amount.

Modern day transactions like we have today are the norm,no computer system,or any other man made system is 100% fail proof.

It does appear the NAB is doing its very best in this situation,We have all our major accounts as does the place I work from time to time,and will not be changing.

The boss said from what he could see this morning the NAB was working when he checked on line accounts.

Has anyone heard at what stage things are at with NAB,I really need to know,as doing some transactions tomorrow.

Chris

[Octane]

I think it's all fixed now, Chris.

H

[hotspur]

Thanks Humayan.

Did you get that email I sent you?

Cheers Chris

[Octane]

Yep, will be in touch soon.

H

[RickS]

Current advice on the Internet banking site is:

[multiweb]

Maybe I spoke too fast (http://www.moneymorning.com.au/20101203/nab-and-westpacs-secret-bailout-revealed.html#more-4288)? .... :whistle:

[snowyskiesau]

Sill problems with NAB.

I had an IIS member tell me they have deposited money this morning in my account for an astro purchase but it's still not shown up.