77TB of Research Data Lost Because of HPE Software Update

77TB of Research Data Lost Because of HPE Software Update

Kyoto University has lost a massive 77TB of critical research data from its supercomputer because Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) issued a software update that caused a script to malfunction and delete backup data. As a result, days of work are gone, and a significant part of the wiped-out data is lost forever.

Kyoto University lost about 34 million files from 14 research groups generated from December 14 to December 16. The university could not restore the data from four groups by backup and therefore it is gone forever. Initially, specialists from Kyoto thought that the university lost up to 100TB, but it turned out that the limit of the disaster was 77TB of data.

HPE released an update that caused a script that deletes log files that are more than ten days old to malfunction. But instead of deleting old log files stored along with backups in a HPE high-capacity storage system, it wiped out all files from the backup instead, erasing 77TB of critical research data.

In a letter of apology published by Kyoto University, HPE admitted that its software update caused the problem and took 100% responsibility for it. HPE said the update to a script used on the supercomputer had been rolled out to “improve visibility and readability”.

It was not immediately clear which four departments of the Kyoto University had permanently lost their research, which will have been expensive and time-consuming to prepare and run. Although the team has suspended the backup process on the supercomputer, Kyoto University plans to resume the backup by the end of January after fixing the software problem and the script and taking measures to prevent a recurrence.

Still, it’s difficult to take complete measures to prevent the possibility of file loss due to equipment failure or disaster. That’s why it’s crucial to make multiple backups with different methods, especially, if you’re working with mission critical data.

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