As Thursday dawned on lower Manhattan, the city's battered data centers continued their recovery efforts. Wednesday was a day of fast-moving events, as some facilities that were down came up, and some that were up went down.
When Dean Nelson, the vice president responsible for provisioning and consolidating EBay’s (EBAY) data centers, evaluated Utah as a site for EBay’s next mega-data-center project, he was mostly happy. It offered tax incentives, low latency for serving EBay’s customers, and the right workforce. But for one problem: “There was a challenge around getting clean power,” says Nelson. Utah has less than 3 percent renewable energy and generates 82 percent of its power from coal, according to data from 2009 provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
While data centers in New York were struggling with water damage and utility outages in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the situation was much better in New Jersey, where many facilities switched to generator power but remained online.
Data center sites and colocation centers in and around New York City are struggling to stay online with varying degrees of success. And there are reports of intermittent issues with undersea cables crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Flooding from Hurricane Sandy has hobbled two data center buildings in Lower Manhattan, taking out diesel fuel pumps used to refuel generators. There were also reports of outages for some tenants at a major data hub at 111 8th Avenue, and many other New York area facilities were running on generator power amid widespread utility outages.
When the VP responsible for provisioning and consolidating eBay’s data centers, Dean Nelson, went to Utah to evaluate the locale as a site for eBay’s next mega data center project, he was mostly happy. It offered tax incentives, low latency for serving eBay’s customers, and the right work force. But there was one problem. “There was a challenge around getting clean power,” says Nelson. Utah has less than 3 percent renewable energy and generates 82 percent of its power from coal, according to data from 2009 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As Hurricane Sandy delivers a glancing blow to New York City, the power company pulls the plug on parts of lower Manhattan, and some Web sites without redundant servers go down.
Data center operators on the US East Coast are bracing for Hurricane Sandy’s landfall, expected by meteorologists on Monday evening. Providers with substantial data center presence in the region, including Equinix, Savvis, Telx and Sungard Availability Services, have taken the basic steps to make sure their facilities are prepared to keep operational through prolonged power outages.
Cloud storage solution provider Nirvanix reported on Monday that it has launched a “Disaster Avoidance Program” to move customer data away from its Node 4 data center in New Jersey, in anticipation of the “Frankenstorm” expected as Hurricane Sandy and a winter storm both hit the Eastern Seaboard at the same time Monday evening.
Major data centers on the East Coast have emergency plans in place, and are preparing to ride out Hurricane Sandy and keep critical communications services online as the powerful storm lays siege to major population centers.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Corporate data centers are the front line in an escalating battle between electronic attackers and defenders, and must be vigilant about defending their perimeter, cybersecurity guru Winn Schwartau told industry managers in his keynote address this morning at the Data Center World Fall 2012 conference. That’s especially true for leading cloud computing data centers, he said. “I maintain that cloud computing is critical infrastructure, and we have not taken appropriate steps to protect it,” said Schwartau, who called out a leading cloud provider for its downtime and architecture.
This article is the part two of a three-part series on energy management in the data center. (See part one here.) Last week, I wrote about the past approaches to data center power management and the state of rising inefficiency. I presented a case for more accurately assessing current power consumption and explained why past approaches for calculating power requirements or manually measuring power were insufficient for establishing proactive energy-management policies.
* Microsoft: We’re Eliminating Backup Generators * Microsoft: We’re Eliminating Backup Generators + By: Rich Miller September 17th, 2012 + + Tweet + + + Several diesel backup generators at a Microsoft data center. The company is looking for ways to reduce its reliance on generators. (Image: Microsoft) For many years, the diesel backup generator has been a symbol of reliability for data centers, providing the emergency power to keep servers online during utility power outages. But the growing
For many years, the diesel backup generator has been a symbol of reliability for data centers, providing the emergency power to keep servers online during utility power outages. But the growing focus on using clean energy to power large data centers is prompting some of the industry’s largest players to ditch their generators, along with their diesel fuel emissions. Microsoft is the latest company to announce its intention to reduce its use of diesel generators. The move is part of a broader initiative to make Microsoft’s server farms more sustainable and less reliant on the utility grid.
The city of Seattle will turn off many public services for five days over Labor Day weekend so it can repair the power system supporting its primary data center, Seattle Mayor Michael McGinn said Thursday. The post Repairs Force Seattle Data Center Offline for 5 Days appeared first on Data Center...
Hosting.com said human error was responsible for a data center power outage that left more than 1,100 customers without service. The downtime occurred as the company was conducting preventive maintenance on a UPS system in the company’s data center in Newark, Del. “An incorrect breaker operation sequence executed by the servicing vendor caused a shutdown of the UPS plant resulting in loss of critical power to one data center suite within the facility,” said Hosting.com CEO Art Zeile in a statement. “This was not a failure of any critical power system or backup power system and is entirely a result of human error.”
Technology giant Apple has been taking a more aggressive stance on its use of alternative energy recently. The company has managed to attract a great deal of attention for its use of hydrogen fuel cells and solar energy systems at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The data center is, in fact, home to the largest private hydrogen fuel cell system in the country. Apple seems keen to expand its use of alternative energy, however, as the company has announced that a new, smaller data center will be built near its larger facility in Maiden.
