New York Data Centers Battle Floods, Utility Outages

miller60 writes "At least three data center buildings in lower Manhattan are struggling with power problems amid widespread flooding and utility outages caused by Hurricane Sandy. Flooded basements at two sites took out diesel fuel pumps, leaving them unable to refuel generators on higher levels. One of these was Datagram, which knocked out Buzzfeed and the Gawker network of sites. At 111 8th Avenue, some tenants lost power when Equinix briefly experienced generator problems." The NY Times has a running list of Sandy-related problems, including 5,700 more flight cancellations, 6 million people without power, rising water levels at a nuclear plant, official disaster declarations from President Obama, and a death toll of 38. On the upside, and despite the high water levels, the Nuclear Energy Institute was quick to point out that all 34 nuclear facilities in Sandy's path made it through without problems.

Comments

Look at the bright side

[AuMatar]

If we're really lucky, it'll take out all the high frequency traders systems for a few days and we can have an actual market without parasites.

Nah, who am I kidding. If that actually happened they'd keep Wall Street closed.

Where are the mid-American datacenters

[blueforce]

Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.? Surely the threat from Tornados could be mitigated and the electrical infrastructure built out more cheaply than the losses due to coastal disasters, no?

Re:Where are the mid-American datacenters

[54mc]

Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.?

If you're paying the premium to host in Manhattan, you're doing so because latency is a big deal to you.

Re:Where are the mid-American datacenters

[OverlordQ]

> Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.?

There are, you just dont hear about them as often because they generally dont have anything newsworthy to report about them.

Re:Where are the mid-American datacenters

[bluefoxlucid]

One bowl of Colon Blow has more fiber.

Re:Where are the mid-American datacenters

[Shatrat]

5 microseconds per kilometer tends to be a pretty good approximation, depending on the transport gear.
Things like FEC, EFEC, dispersion compensation modules (non-bragg grating type), frequent OEO regens can add up and make it worse.

That would give you a ballpark of 11ms for a 1450 mile circuit.

Re:Where are the mid-American datacenters

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a daatcenter in Kansas. I can tell you first hand that there are a lot of datacenters around here (Kansas City metro). If you aren't doing high speed trading, then you have no reason to not have a datacenter out here. Power is cheaper, space is cheaper, cost of living is cheaper, you don't have to worry about hurricanes or snow, most DCs are tornado proof, and connectivity here is WAY better than people know (and growing faster than any other area in the country). If latency is your primary concern though, then close to the source is your only option.

Disaster Plan Fail

[OverlordQ]

[...] work hard to assess the situation and our recovery plans.

How about not putting mission critical equipment susceptible to water damage in the one place all water will go.

Re:No big deal. It was a cat1 storm

[sglewis100]

This is as strong as a case forever to stop paying attention to the media.

Sounds like you already stopped paying attention. Had you even checked the one link in the article, or even read the summary, you'd know it was a catastophy, and New York will not function "perfectly tomorrow like nothing ever happened."

Schools closed. Subways closed 4-5 days. 38 people dead. Market closed. Fire in Queens destroys dozens of homes. Power outages for millions. 7% of the US population in fact without power. Tunnels flooded (subway and car). NYU Tisch hospital evacuated due to flood related generator failures, including premature babies on ventilators. Just a small summary, of just one city.

I'm a former NYer. Have spoken to many friends and family. None expect normal life tomorrow. Some have considerable property damage. None lost a life, thankfully. I live in South Florida, incidentally, and rather well understand how damaging hurricanes can be. Wilma damaged my car, and cancelled my wedding day as the roof caved in on the place we were getting married in that Friday.

This is a rare strong case to NOT stop paying attention to the media.

Re:Oblig. XKCD

[oodaloop]

Reminds me of one of xkcd's funniest comics:

http://xkcd.com/404/

Re:I'm waiting for the calls...

[bws111]

Getting several feet of snow in one day is not all that unusual in Buffalo. What do you think would happen to New Orleans if that happened there? An average cold winter's day where I live has a low temp of about 0F. Think New Orleans could take that for a few weeks at a time? The tidal change in the Bay of Fundy is something like 40ft - think New Orleans could take it? Sure, you get winds over 100MPH in New Orleans, but Mt Washington, NH recorded over 230MPH. Think you could take it?

Comparing things like wind speed and storm surge and temperature between different regions is a fools game. What really matters is deviation from normal, and this was a very large deviation from normal. Yes, the storm surge was 'only' 13 feet, but the last time it was that high in NY was - unknown. The previous recorded max was in 1830 something, and this beat it. No, 70MPH winds are not that high in absolute terms, but tell that to the trees that couldn't take it (because normally they are only subjected to 50MPH winds).

In short, get over yourself. The fact that you have experienced similar absolute numbers without devastation does not in any way mean that the same conditions are not devastating elsewhere, or that they shouldn't be devastating. No matter where you live, someone else is living with conditions that you would consider devastating.