Update on USU Data Center Outage on Aug. 27

Utah State University experienced a very unusual equipment failure in the backup systems that provide power to the university data center, which resulted in loss of internet access and electronic services on campus throughout the morning and into the afternoon of Aug. 27. 

Once this power outage occurred, systems had to be carefully restored to make sure no data was lost and the system was secure. University websites began coming back online at 10:20 a.m. Many Banner services were back online mid-day and all services were available by the end of the day. 

“We know this outage had widespread impacts, particularly on students starting their first week of the semester, and we appreciated our community’s patience with the situation,” said Eric Hawley, USU’s Chief Information Officer.

USU is actively investigating improvements to reduce the chances and impacts of an outage like this in the future. The university has also discussed alternative ways it could have communicated with the community and put communication protocols in place in case of a future similar outage.