Authorize.Net Down Due to Data Center Fire   - 1,138 Views,

Thousands of AuthorizeNet customers have started their long 4th of July weekend learning that Authorize.net has gone down - and gone down hard - due to a fire at one of their main data centers in Seattle, Washington. Authorize.net is one of the largest providers of merchant services on the Internet, allowing their customers to accept and process credit card payments with MasterCard and Visa. This means that when Authorize.net goes down - everybody’s ability to do business goes down with them.

It turns out that a fire in Seattle’s Fisher Plaza has taken down the merchant provider giant’s Seattle Data Center. However, for hours there was not only a data blackout, but what seemed a news blackout, with nobody really knowing what had happened. In fact, there is still blessed little coverage about the fire itself, and it is only because someone from Authorize.Net created an account in Twitter just moments ago that the speculation as to what has happened is ended.

“We are down due to a fire at our primary data center in Seattle. We are working to restore services, but no ETA at this time.” said the Authorize.net representative, who is getting communications out to the outside world via the Twitter account @authorizenet.

The blaze apparently also took out at least one network news affiliate. And, it is reported, what the fire didn’t destroy, the resulting deluge of water from the sprinklers did.

No word on when Authorize.net will be back up, but they are “working on it.”