>There is a consensus building that this is an infrastructure fault. FWIW, when we learned of the problem this was our first reaction as well. The IT manager reacted very defensively and politicised inside the organisation to the effect that rather than trying to problem-solve we just want to point fingers. And any cost to repair the fault, because it *must* be a fault in the software, will have to be carried by us.

It does sound like an infrastructure issue - especially if a relatively fault-tolerant product like SQL Server is experiencing difficulties.

What is often required in situations like this is to bring in an experienced 3rd party who is acceptable to both sides, and get an evaluation of their system. If it's done sensitively both parties will usually accept the findings and face can be saved where necessary.

Deciding who pays for this 3rd party is sometimes interesting. In some cases the party that feels they are likely to blame, but doesn't want to admit it, will want to fund the 3rd party evaluation so that they're sure the report won't be biased against them, and so they can gain a little face by being fiscally magnaminous.