Ufone VAS takes time to function fully

KARACHI - The value added services (VAS) of Ufone are still affected all over the country and would take time to be fully resumed as fire broke out in one of the Ufone data centers. However, the SMS services and voice message service have been made fully operational yesternight, while the Blackberry service has also been restored, the official spokesperson of Ufone Moazzam Ali Khan told The Nation. The fire in the said data center, located in Islamabad, has resulted in severe destruction of infrastructure and the building, and that data center was responsible for VAS services, including short message service and blackberry services. According to the sources spark in backup battery was main cause of the fire, and later on for some reasons, the fire control system did not go through to tackle the situation. This damaging of the data center annulled the countrywide database of Ufone. Though the Ufone is planning to recover the infrastructure immediately; it may take as long as 24 hours to initially deploy the machines from other data centers and the data recovery. Moreover, CRBT and SMS delivery services got affected and Provisioning services are also reported as partially damaged, thus the call center will not be able to retrieve CDRs and other customer information to extent. Similarly, Front desk staff/ franchises might face issues for sales/ complaint booking, and it is possible that these activities are performed manually for a day or two, until the system is fully restored. According to the Ufone sources the recovery plan includes setting up machines at alternative locations; however, backing up data will be most crucial part. Freeing up resources such as less-critical tasks or internal monitoring is also being rolled out.