Report: Data center outage further snarls new healthcare law's online rollout

Reuters' David Morgan and Sharon Begley have reported that "a data center critical for allowing uninsured Americans to buy health coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare law went down on Sunday, halting online enrollment for all 50 states in the latest problem to hit the program's troubled rollout...The data center, operated by Verizon's Terremark, experienced a connectivity issue that caused it to shut down, affecting the federal government's already problem-plagued online marketplace Healthcare.gov and similar sites operated by 14 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)."

Related: Study drills down on effects of data center outages

The report continues, "The outage that started in the early hours of Sunday [Oct. 27] caused the data center to lose network connectivity with the federal government's data services hub, an electronic traffic roundabout that links the online health insurance marketplaces with numerous federal agencies and can verify people's identity, citizenship, and other facts...Obama administration and [Verizon] officials could not say how long it would take to fix the connectivity problem."

Full story: Data center glitch is latest problem in 'Obamacare' rollout (reuters.com)

See also:A look inside the cabling for federal government data centers