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Datagram Recovers From 'Apocalyptic' Flooding During Sandy
1sockchuck writes "During SuperStorm Sandy, few data centers faced a bigger challenge than the Datagram facility in lower Manhattan. The storm surge from Sandy flooded its basement, disabling critical pumps. 'It was apocalyptic,' said CEO Alex Reppen. 'It was like a tidal wave over lower Manhattan.' While companies like CoreSite dealt primarily with the loss of ConEd power, the Datagram team sought to recover operations in an active flood zone. Why was mission-critical equipment in the basement? Because city officials restrict placing fuel tanks on rooftops and upper floors, citing concerns about diesel emerging from the 9-11 attacks."
Everyone knows that flying airplanes into the tops of buildings happens more often than floods in the basement. Gotta keep the priorities straight.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
If only there was some sort of technology that allowed us to keep fuel in one place and the generators somewhere else...
Well, if the ordnance pertains to fuel tanks specifically, why not put waterproof tanks in the basement, and run sealed lines (including venting) up from there, locating the pumps somewhat higher. Obviously you're limited as to how much higher the pumps can be, but you can draw fuel a fair bit upwards on vacuum (maybe 20 feet?). If you're allowed to send pressurized air down the vent you could put the pumps up higher - I'm not sure what the laws are around that. If there are concerns with pressurized air mixing with fuel, another option might be a tank with a rubber bladder inside where the space between can be pressurized with either air or fluid - that's how they do it in liquid fueled rockets. As long as the tank and lines are waterproof you could keep it in the basement and operate indefinitely - but you'd need to work out all the details (like refueling - if the tank has to operate under pressure then you need to have pressure on the fueling lines as well, and suitable couplings and all that, unless you have more than one tank and can operate on one while fueling another).
All of that entails certain hazards - you'd want well-trained personnel to operate it - you're starting to resemble operations on a jet or spacecraft...
If you questioned why and you still placed your companies life in that data center you should be fired for stupidity.
It's the same reason I won't place my companies data at a DC in a crowded downtown area. Sporting events, politcial events, terrorist events.
If you say you don't have a choice then you haven't thought of alternative means. Cloud, managed hosting, or a more weather stable state.
Lower Manhattan is pretty much land filled area and 911 showed how vulnerable the WTC was below ground. They were extremely concenred about the Hudson flooding lower Manhattan.
Again if you placed your companies data at a DC in lower Manhattan you should be fired.
In this context doesn't it mean "your company’s information is safe, duplicated and available immediately and at any time."?
That's what I thought at first, having lived through Andrew in Florida -- I was all, "psh, its only a category 1". However, thi sisn't a Yankees media situation. Sandy was significantly more powerful then the category would imply.
For one thing, by the time it hit NYC, it was no longer a hurricane -- it had merged with one or two cold storm systems that were coming in from the other direction. This changed the dynamic of the storm significantly: whereas hurricanes gain their energy from the warm ocean waters, this type of storm gained its energy from the difference between the cold and hot storm systems merging together. Or something. (The precise details are not clear to me: I'm not a meteorologist)
Sandy was also *huge* -- measuring the total energy in the storm, it was bigger then Katrina. Hurricanes can get intense but the brunt of their power is focused. They may have a lot of wind speed, and strictly by that measure Sandy wasn't very impressive... but when you have a cat 1 spread out as far as Sandy was, its pulling in a HUGE amount of water.
It wasn't the wind that was so destructive here: it was the storm surge that the huge storm system brought with it.
More sciency stuff at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/sandy-packed-more-total-energy-than-katrina-at-landfall/2012/11/02/baa4e3c4-24f4-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html (Warning: yankee media)
But, really. Its not just rhetoric of omg the Yanks are finally getting hit that made this seem bad. It really was a very, very, very bad storm and the hurricane classification only makes it seem small.
Citing 9/11 is interesting in light of the NIST report:
Did fuel oil systems in WTC 7 contribute to its collapse?
No. The building had three separate emergency power systems, all of which ran on diesel fuel. The worst-case scenarios associated with fires being fed by ruptured fuel lines-or from fuel stored in day tanks on the lower floors-could not have been sustained long enough, could not have generated sufficient heat to weaken critical interior columns, and/or would have produced large amounts of visible smoke from the lower floors, which were not observed.
As background information, the three systems contained two 12,000 gallon fuel tanks, and two 6,000 gallon tanks beneath the building's loading docks, and a single 6,000 gallon tank on the 1st floor. In addition one system used a 275 gallon tank on the 5th floor, a 275 gallon tank on the 8th floor, and a 50 gallon tank on the 9th floor. Another system used a 275 gallon day tank on the 7th floor.
Several months after the WTC 7 collapse, a contractor recovered an estimated 23,000 gallons of fuel from these tanks. NIST estimated that the unaccounted fuel totaled 1,000 ±1,000 gallons of fuel (in other words, somewhere between 0 and 2,000 gallons, with 1,000 gallons the most likely figure). The fate of the fuel in the day tanks was unknown, so NIST assumed the worst-case scenario, namely that they were full on Sept. 11, 2001. The fate of the fuel of two 6,000 gallon tanks was also unknown. Therefore, NIST also assumed the worst-case scenario for these tanks, namely that all of the fuel would have been available to feed fires either at ground level or on the 5th floor.