Following the outages in December and February, the ATO will be swapping out its faulty storage area network (SAN) over Easter.
The ATO blamed their faulty SAN for the lengthy downtime and plan to upgrade the hardware over the Easter long weekend which falls between April 14 and 17.
Commissioner Chris Jordan announced the planned downtime last week and added “When we replace the faulty SAN equipment and migrate data to the new one, we will be deliberately taking our systems offline to minimise any risks to future performance and stability.”
“From consultation, we understand these are the most sensible and least inconvenient times for the tax profession and the broader community.”
Jordan also offered some further explanation to what caused the massive 5 day outage in February.
“As part of the work to stabilise the faulty SAN following the December incident, an element of critical hardware became dislodged when a faulty cable was being replaced," he said.
“This in turn caused the SAN to enter into shutdown mode, which disrupted a range of critical ATO services, similar to the scope of systems and services impacted in December."
“We are taking a very measured and considered approach to minimise risks to ensure that the experience of tax time 2016 can be matched, that we meet our commitments to government, and that we offer you stability in our portal service,” Jordan said.
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