Public services under a cloud

Cloud computing is like a utility. Cheap. Think of your gas and electricity and phone and water bills.

Like the internet, it's always available. Resilient. Disaster-proof. No power cuts. Ever.

Except for the past two days, when some suppliers accredited to the UK government CloudStore found they couldn't log on, see below.

CloudStore is hosted by Memset. And since 1 June 2013, it's been the responsibility of the Government Digital Service, who promise that cloud computing is the key to the future of public services delivered efficiently by innovative SMEs. If they can log on, at least.

Does anyone know how this impossible-to-happen service interruption happened?

@G_Cloud_UK http://t.co/djp2lnHj2K CloudStore looking a little poorly this morning, with a page of SQL errors
— Gareth Niblett (@infosecmaven) September 10, 2013

@G_Cloud_UK Store down? any idea when it will be back up?
— Neil Moulton (@neil_moj) September 10, 2013

@G_Cloud_UK CloudStore back online for me
— Gareth Niblett (@infosecmaven) September 10, 2013

@G_Cloud_uk https://t.co/2aPSntEOI8 -> 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable and I need to do smthg by Fri. pls let me know when it's back
— Saul Cozens (@saulcozens) September 10, 2013

@saulcozens looks like it's up and running now. Are you able to login?
— G-Cloud (@G_Cloud_UK) September 11, 2013

@G_Cloud_UK yup thanks. You could probably do with a more informative 503 error page though.
— Saul Cozens (@saulcozens) September 11, 2013