Tata unit says 'extensive damage' from fire at Delhi data centre hampers recovery

NEW DELHI - A fire at a New Delhi data centre owned by Singapore's ST Telemedia and India's Tata Communications caused "extensive damage" to parts of the facility, making data recovery challenging, a Tata letter seen by Reuters shows.

The firm, part of the salt-to-aviation Tata conglomerate, told Indian stock exchanges on ​June 5 it had activated business continuity protocols to minimise disruptions after an early morning fire at the STT Global Data Centres India facility.

One data centre client, India's Matrix Cellular, which provides international SIM cards, told Reuters it is struggling to recover two decades of data lost in the blaze.


Some of Google Cloud's intermittent network disruptions in India also relate ‌to the incident, a source ⁠with direct ⁠knowledge of the matter said.

Television news images from inside the facility on the day of the fire showed server racks and electrical infrastructure that appeared to be completely burnt, with ceiling panels ​collapsed and debris littering the floor.

The fire was "so severe that it caused extensive damage" to parts of the facility and hindered services, Tata Communications unit Novamesh told a client in the June 15 letter, which has not previously been reported.

"Despite our ongoing best efforts to recover the data, the severity of the damage ... presents significant challenges to the recovery of the affected data and systems," it said in the letter sent to Matrix Cellular and reviewed by Reuters.

Tata Communications and ST ​Telemedia did not respond to Reuters queries.

GOOGLE, CLIENT WOES

The cause of the fire is not yet clear, ⁠and Delhi ‌fire authorities said it occurred in lithium battery units.

"Matrix has potentially lost access to over 20 years of accumulated operational and ​business data stored in ​the affected Tata data centre," CEO Gaurav Khanna told Reuters.

"It's been 20 days and they have not restored backup. If ⁠there is a backup it should have been restored by now."

On June 9 Google said ​on its incidents page "a fire at a third-party data center facility required an emergency power shutdown of networking ​equipment", without naming Tata.

Google's updates related to the same STT-Tata site, said the source, who sought anonymity as the matter is sensitive.

In its last update on June 23, Google said there was no workaround yet and warned customers they could face latency issues until the facility was fully restored.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

Another client, Indian internet service provider R2 Net, faces an estimated loss of $2 million as well as the loss of commercial clients from the disruption, said its CEO, Sanjay Singh.

The fire affected "vital tracking data stored in servers and used by law enforcement to monitor illegal internet activity," he told ‌Reuters

A representative of STT Global Data Centres India told R2 Net in a June 23 email, seen by Reuters, that it was running "detailed assessments and commissioned independent technical root cause analysis" of the incident, expected to be completed in five to seven ​weeks.

Reuters could not identify other ​affected companies.

Site owner Tata Communications says "300 of ⁠the Fortune 500 companies are its customers and the company connects businesses to 80% of the world's cloud giants."

'FORCE MAJEURE'

In 2016, ST Telemedia acquired a stake of 74% in Tata Communications' data centre business. Their joint venture now runs 30 data centres in 10 Indian cities.

The fire adds to troubles faced ​by the Tata group. Tata Electronics recently suffered a "cybersecurity incident" in which a ransomware website posted what it said were documents of its clients Apple and Tesla on the dark web.

Matrix said it lost customer data, usage records and support history as well as billing and vendor-related data in the fire. Matrix said its sales have fallen sharply from disruptions caused by the data centre outage.

"This is clearly an unfortunate force majeure event ... services under the agreements at the data Centre facility have been hindered," Tata unit Novamesh said in its letter. "The position continues to be assessed."

The data centre had a "state-of-the-art fire protection and suppression system," the joint venture says on its website.