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In the mid-1980s, I was witness to an incident where an upgrade to the SS7 software used in AT&T's long distance network took most of North America's long distance service down hard for more than twenty-four hours. It was then that I began formulating what came to be called Pinkston's Law: MOST OUTAGES BEGIN AS UPGRADES

Over the years since, I have seen this happen so often that whenever I hear of a major telecom or data service outage, my first thought is, "Must have been an upgrade. Pinkston's Law." In the vast majority of cases it turns out that that's exactly what it was! So, at the urging of those closest to me, I've started this blog to chronicle the occurrences of Pinkston's law whenever I hear of them.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Tesco IT upgrade causes till outage: May 11, 2009


  • Length of outage: 4-24 hours

  • Number of people affected: 100 retail stores forced to close
Tesco is a major grocery and general merchandise retailer in the UK. North American readers might compare it to Wal-mart or Costco. Tesco launched a big "loyalty scheme" promotion in UK newspapers to its millions of Clubcard holders, which required an upgrade of their software, which caused their tills (cash registers) to malfunction just as the stores opened at 8:00 AM.
Original news story is HERE.
The official statement from Tesco was terse but candid:
"A number of stores were affected by a routine IT upgrade this morning at various locations in the country,” said a Tesco spokesperson.
She might just as well have said, "Blimey! We were struck down by Pinkston's Law!"
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