

Preparing Rackspace Data Centers for Hurricane Sandy - russell_h
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/preparing-our-data-centers-for-hurricane-sandy/

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ChuckMcM
I always found it interesting at Google data centers their 'power fail'
checklist started with 'call for fuel'. Basically as soon as power failed the
diesel generators would start gulping fuel like there was no tomorrow.

Seeing reports of data centers experiencing flooding I really wonder what best
practices are for a data center in a flood zone. Not like you could float it
or anything. It hasn't been on my list of worries (Santa Clara doesn't flood
much, more likely to fall into a crack in the ground). Anyone here who has an
action plan for flooding at their data center? I recall seeing a nuclear plant
that had a levee wall, that was pretty impressive.

~~~
confluence
Makes sense - assuming supply lines are cut then you'll need to get in before
the thundering herd clobbers access to fuel and jacks the price up to
uneconomic short term levels. I'm surprised they don't keep large strategic
oil reserves on site like the military does.

~~~
ChuckMcM
As it turns out I know the answer to that one. Its a question of hazardous
materials. You need a permit to store fuel on site (and you have to get
regular inspections to insure it isn't leaking into the groundwater) and the
permits get more expensive the more fuel you keep. At some point the
permitting authority would probably change your business classification from
'data center' to 'fuel depot' if you went overboard :-)

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patrickgzill
It is nice that they talk about this - however these are not Rackspace
standards but standard industrywide, some of which have been in place since
the 1960s, when ATT revised their plans for central office facilities in the
wake of riots in some American cities.

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Narkov
It is frustrating for customers outside of the US to have to look up and
convert these unfamiliar time zones. As a company that services customers all
over the planet, why not post UTC?

Thankfully though, they managed to convert the generator run times from the
completely unfamiliar "hours" unit into the much more universal "days" unit.
</sarcasm>

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sciurus
This link returns a 404 error for me.

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JosephRedfern
Sweet, sweet irony. <http://cl.ly/image/2G1Z1A3c1S0c>

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kungfoo
I hope preparing didn't mean putting up a 404 page. =)

But given the comments above, it seems likely that the issue wasn't a result
of lack of power/gas. Interested to find out what failed with the
preparations.

