Web host Contabo: Server outage due to cooling problems

Customers of the web hosting provider Contabo from Munich complained on Tuesday about a disruption that had been going on for days. The company itself announced on a status page that there were "unexpected cooling problems" in a data center in Nuremberg. As a result, various servers were unavailable. New orders, the support ticket system and the customer pages for server settings were also affected. On Tuesday evening, Contabo announced that the fault had since been rectified and that all affected servers were back online.

In numerous e-mails to heise online, customers complained about the company's information policy. The telephone hotline was also unavailable. Numerous angry comments can be read on the hoster's social media sites. An inquiry from heise online has not yet been answered.

In numerous e-mails to heise online, customers complained about the company's information policy. The telephone hotline was also unavailable. Numerous angry comments can be read on the hoster's social media sites. When asked by heise online, the company explained that it understands the frustration that this situation has caused. “We apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank our customers for their patience and understanding during this challenging time.”

According to Contabo, the exact cause is still being investigated. Initial findings pointed to lightning strikes during a severe storm in Franconia at 7.14 am on Monday, which affected several companies in the region. “This led to a voltage fluctuation in the public power grid, which caused the control system to malfunction, preventing the data center cooling system from switching to the emergency power source.” The company is planning a full root cause analysis in accordance with the KRITIS-BSI regulation and intends to publish the results.

To prevent similar incidents in the future, Contabo has decided to migrate all customers with services in Nuremberg to a newly built data center park in Lauterbourg.

400,000 servers on four continents

According to Contabo, it was founded in 2003 as "Giga-International". In recent years, the German web host has expanded to several other continents. The company employs 300 staff at 12 locations on four continents and hosts more than 400,000 servers, according to the company's self-promotion.

(mki)