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Google Cloud explains how it accidentally deleted a customer account (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Earlier this month, Google Cloud experienced one of its biggest blunders ever when UniSuper, a $135 billion Australian pension fund, had its Google Cloud account wiped out due to some kind of mistake on Google's end. At the time, UniSuper indicated it had lost everything it had stored with Google, even its backups, and that caused two weeks of downtime for its 647,000 members. There were joint statements from the Google Cloud CEO and UniSuper CEO on the matter, a lot of apologies, and presumably a lot of worried customers who wondered if their retirement fund had disappeared.

UniSuper's mistake was relying too much on Google Cloud even for critical backups.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Errant settings that marked the account as delinquent/unpaid at the end of the month, triggering immediate and irrecoverable account deletion. Basically, the scariest part of the google cloud is if they think you can't pay anymore, even if it's a mistake, your account will be wiped along with the backups. They did say they'll have more safeguard after this, but finger crossed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Fixed Term" does not mean "delinquent". It just means there's a hard cut off. All I know is the snippet you posted, though, so maybe there's more to the situation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

When the account is marked as missed the assigned fixed payment term, it's basically a delinquent account, right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Unless I'm misunderstanding it myself, fixed term means they had a set period of time that's not up for renewal. Ergo, when the term runs out, that's it. There's no chance of delinquency because there's no additional payments.