A Google Cloud data center in Paris is currently offline. Reports suggest that part of the facility caught fire due to a water leak, causing 90 Google Cloud services to be moved to other data centers.
The first error was reported on Google Cloud’s status page at 4 a.m. Wednesday. It concerned the europe-west9-a zone, which was shut down automatically due to a ‘water intrusion’. Google has yet to announce when all Google Cloud services will be fully operational again.
The water is believed to have leaked into the battery room, resulting in a fire. Firefighters had the fire under control by noon.
Worldwide Impact
A number of services have since resumed. For example, Google Cloud Storage, Cloud Key Management, Cloud Identity and Access Management, and Google Kubernetes Engine are now available within the europe-west9 region. However, the Google Cloud Console was temporarily disabled globally. This console allows users to manage and monitor all aspects of the cloud environment.
This incident highlights that the move to the cloud does not exempt organizations from physical issues. Although users with failover can temporarily move to neighboring regions, the functionality of the service is limited. Data located in Paris may also belong to parties outside the surrounding areas, meaning people worldwide can be affected by a local problem.
Read also: Google Cloud Achieves Profitability for the First Time
