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As Hurricane Season Looms, It's Disaster-Preparedness Time

Posted by Soulskill on from the make-sure-the-anti-zombie-alarms-have-batteries dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "In 2012, hurricane Sandy smacked the East Coast and did significant damage to New Jersey, New York City, and other areas. Flooding knocked many datacenters in Manhattan offline, temporarily taking down a whole lot of Websites in the process. Now that fall (and the tail end of hurricane season) is upon us again, any number of datacenters and IT companies are probably looking over their disaster-preparedness checklists in case another storm comes barreling through. Ryan Murphey, who heads up design and capacity planning for PEER 1 (which kept its Manhattan datacenter running during the storm by creating a makeshift bucket brigade to carry fuel to the building's 17th floor), offers a couple basic tips for possibly mitigating damage from the next infrastructure-crushing disaster, including setting up emergency response teams and arranging contracts for maintenance and fuel in advance."

10 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Hurricane season is just about over. by edibobb · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looming? Most North American hurricanes this year have already happened! Is this some kind of spam?

    1. Re:Hurricane season is just about over. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Since NY was affected by a hurricane in the fall, hurricane season now officially starts in the fall. Everyone else be damned.

    2. Re:Hurricane season is just about over. by alexander_686 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You know that even with the rate increase you are getting a huge barging? Florida’s state insurance scheme deficit keeps on getting bigger and bigger each year. Private insurance companies are fleeing as fast as they can because of caps set up by the state insurance regulator- which is why there is no competition.

      Either build cheap houses that are cheap to rebuild after they are blown down or build them so that can take a hurricane. Stick built houses just is not the answer..

      http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21579470-americans-are-building-beachfront-homes-even-oceans-rise-youre-going-get-wet

      http://www.economist.com/node/4085798

    3. Re:Hurricane season is just about over. by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think you are ignoring some critical points.

      Like the population affected by gulf and southern atlantic hurricanes.
      You know... texas with 25 million (up by 5 million since 2000 alone) vs new york with 19 million ( essentially no growth since 2000).

      Another 16 million in Florida (which has been hit by almost every major hurricane at some point). 10's of millions more in loiusiana, alabama, mississippi, the carolina's, and arkansas.

      You have an argument culturally (tho california has come on a bit with it's 33 million people). Nothing is replacing Broadway and off Broadway.

      New York is visible financially (tho it's slowly being routed around due to cost issues). The largest component of job loss recently has been financial jobs (20,000 in 2009 alone).

      The hurricane season officially began on June 1 and will end on November 30.
      It was predicted to be a rough season.

      So far, it's a dud.

      In the 20th century, of the 64 major hurricanes to hit the US, 51 hit in september and august.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  2. WTF? by scheme · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hurricane season has been going on for a few months now. Why the hell would a data center or organization review their hurricane/storm related disaster checklists now instead of, oh, you know, before hurricane season? Any organization complacent and negligent enough to wait till the end of the hurricane season to review/correct their checklists probably isn't going to actually care about the checklist anyway.

    --
    "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
  3. Oh cool by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was looking for a reason to lay in a supply of scotch. I already have the generator and transfer switch.

    Arberg here we come!

  4. Re-Inventing The Wheel by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look, we don't have to re-invent the wheel. A hurricane preparedness kit is EXACTLY the same as Zombie Survival Kit minus the shotguns.

  5. Re:a bucket brigade of FUEL?! by Shoten · · Score: 4, Informative

    >> which kept its Manhattan datacenter running during the storm by creating a makeshift bucket brigade to carry fuel to the building's 17th floor

    No fire code violations there, right? I'd love to be an attorney near this one. "So, you burned down the building trying to keep a couple of servers running, when you could have just co-located your equipment in a smarter place (like anyone who knows what they're doing would have done)."

    When you're doing things like HFT, colocation in a different geographical area is a non-option. They're eking out every microsecond they can, even going so far as to use microwave for communications when possible instead of fiber simply for the reduced latency. Putting the servers way the hell out somewhere away from Wall Street is not helpful.

    Surely you don't think that these companies have large datacenter operations in Manhattan just for the cheap real estate?

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  6. Re:How many emergencies in the past 12 years? by mythosaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While rural New Mexico might be extreme, there's a reason that places like Phoenix AZ are filled with new data centers and skilled IT staff. Need a disaster recovery site? Put it here, or in Nevada. Flood? Hurricane? Earthquake? Tornados? You must be kidding.

    Sure, it's not the tech density of San Jose, but it's kitten-safe from a disaster standpoint.

  7. Sandy Wasn't a Hurricane by sexconker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sandy was a tropical storm. Not a hurricane. No, there wasn't anything "super" about it.