'CME data center shutdown attributable to human error - report'

 The data center shutdown experienced by CME Group in late November has been attributed to human error, according to a report.

A spokesperson told Bloomberg that onsite staff and contractors at the CH1 data center operated by CyrusOne had failed to follow standard procedure for draining cooling towers ahead of freezing temperatures.

CyrusOne's Aurora data center– CyrusOne

This was the cause of a “chiller plant failure affecting multiple cooling units,” as previously reported by DCD.

The outage lasted around 11 hours on November 28, preventing traders from accessing futures prices for a number of commodities and stocks.

Shortly after the outage, CyrusOne said that it had added “additional redundancy to the cooling systems.”

CME Group, formerly known as Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings, is one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges. It provides a range of benchmark products for traders spanning rates, equities, metals, energy, cryptocurrencies, and agriculture.

The CH1 data center, located in Aurora, Illinois, was initially operated by CME itself before being sold to CyrusOne under a 15-year sale-leaseback deal in 2016 worth $130 million. Following successive waves of expansions, the 450,000 sq ft (41,806 sqm) campus now spans three data centers and offers 109MW of IT capacity.

CyrusOne is jointly owned by private equity firms KKR & Co. and Global Infrastructure Partners. It operates 55 data centers.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/cme-data-center-shutdown-attributable-to-human-error-report/