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NYC Data Center Needs Focus On Fuel
Nerval's Lobster writes "Who knew that the most critical element of operating a data center in New York City was ensuring a steady supply of diesel fuel? In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the challenges facing data center operators in the affected zones include pumping water from basements, waiting for utility power to be restored, and managing fuel-truck deliveries. And it's become increasingly clear which companies had the resources and foresight to plan for a disaster like Sandy, and which are simply reacting. Here's the latest on providers around the New York area." And remember, having fuel for machines sometimes only means it's time to start the manual labor.
Which makes me question the wisdom of urban datacenters in the first place.
Everyone already knew that the on-site fuel supply is the limiting factor of power availability in a disaster. Even fuel delivery contracts mean nothing in a disaster or wide-spread outages - hospitals, EMS and other government services will trump the fuel delivery contract, if a hospital needs fuel, they are going to get the fuel that's been "guaranteed" for your datacenter.
There's no reason to spend big $$ creating a flood proof, earthquake proof, tornado proof, airplane crash proof datacenter in the middle of a city when you can have a disaster recovery site 1000 miles away that's not subject to the same type of disaster. (except maybe an asteroid strike, but there are few datacenters on the moon). No matter how disaster-proof you make your datacenter, mother nature (or man) will always find a way to create a disaster you didn't plan for -- even if that "disaster" is a typo in a router configuration file that takes down the network, or a contractor accidentally shorting out the emergency power cutoff switch wiring when bolting a rack to the wall.
Some of these servers were the "cloud".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Think. It is a fire hazard. As in "it starts leaking because of event X happening". And where does stuff go when it leaks? Yes, it goes down.
That is why fuel is stored DOWN in the basement. *Water*, on the other hand, you can store on the roof.
If you don't want to worry about your tank getting flooded, then make it water tight with air inlet well up high out of the water. There are safe and reliable ways of doing this without storing your fuel on the roof!!