Data Foundry Blog

The battle is heating up and the costs are staggering. In a recent Information Week article entitled Banks Hit Downtime Milestone in DDoS Attacks, it was reported that U.S. banks and financial services institutions have reported double the downtime of their websites compared to a year ago. And, with the much publicized accusations against the Iranian Government for sponsoring DDoS attacks on U.S. Banks, the impact may be felt for some time. It’s not just banks and financial institutions at risk, anyone with a web presence can be impacted. So, if you aren’t protected you may end of paying a stiff price in terms of business interruption and possibly lost customers, revenue and reputation.

Imagine that Hurricane Sandy came knocking at your door. Would your IT infrastructure be safe? Would your staff have a suitable workspace to continue operations? Don’t let your business be a victim of a disaster as some experienced in New York and New Jersey when their cooling systems were forced to power down and flooding killed their network. These events are further explained in an article entitled In Sandy’s Aftermath, Epic Challenges for Data Centers about some of the effects Hurricane Sandy had on data centers. To ensure that your disaster recovery strategy can withstand the test of a disaster, here are four important items to consider.

Colocation providers are eager to help you make the right choice in selecting a data center (hint – we all believe our data center is the right choice). Most colocation providers will supply you with a checklist to make sure you understand all of the features we think you should evaluate in order to make an informed decision. This is good stuff and actually quite useful!

In the end we are all trying to make sure your IT infrastructure will have a happy home in our data center. It’s like when your child leaves home for college; you want to make sure he/she will have everything needed to thrive – from a safe and secure roof over their head to a reasonable diet to roommates they can trust. We essentially want the same thing for your IT infrastructure while it is under our roof.

Let’s start by talking about why this is even a topic for discussion. It all comes down to the desire to have successful data center outsourcing initiatives – whether you are looking to completely outsource your data center operations or just pieces of them. Nobody goes into a project expecting failure yet there are plenty of stories about best efforts that went wrong, sometimes very wrong, like Texas Ousts IBM, Takes New IT Outsourcing Tack. To be fair, the majority of organizations looking to outsource all or part of their mission-critical infrastructure won’t have to deal with the scale and complexity of the state of Texas. Where, as we know, everything is bigger. However, I think you would agree that your IT infrastructure is no less important…to you!

Hurricane Sandy served as a stark reminder that we should always be prepared for the unexpected. Following this type of disaster, we are forced to reassess our understanding of how certain areas are affected by natural disasters. Red Cross, NOAA and NRC have developed a basic risk level for almost every part of the US. We commonly use the map below to illustrate how safe Austin, TX is for data center operations.

Texas 1 is designed to ensure continuous uptime and availability for your IT infrastructure. In our latest blog entry, we explore the costs of downtime.

Tuesday night’s Data Center World “After Party”, hosted by Data Foundry, Opengate and DCS, was a success for everyone involved.

A packed room of data center professionals was in attendance to relax and discuss the wide range of topics presented at this year’s Data Center World 2012. Included in this year’s presentations was Data Foundry’s own Cameron Wynne, AFCOM’s 2012 Data Center Manager of the Year, who presented on ‘Overcoming Project Hurdles Using Proven Project Methodologies’. Thanks to each of you that stopped by and let us know how much you appreciated his presentation. We look forward to seeing everyone at Data Center World 2013.

Roughly 35 AFCOM members attended the 2012 Greater Houston AFCOM Chapter Meeting last Thursday. During the luncheon, Data Foundry’s Cameron Wynne, Vice President of Operations and current AFCOM Data Center Manager of the Year, gave a presentation on Overcoming Project Hurdles. Cameron covered issues on avoiding and minimizing the inherent risks involved in constructing and managing state-of-the-art colocation data centers.

Downed Power Lines

According to the Edison Electric Institute, the top five causes of power outages in the United States are:

1. Mother Nature – More than half of all power outages across the U.S. are caused by nature. High winds, lightning, ice and heavy rains can affect an aboveground power line directly or indirectly by causing trees or other debris to strike it. Overgrown vegetation can also short out aboveground equipment.
2. Automobile Accidents – Over five percent of all power outages are caused by a vehicle striking an electrical pole or transformer.
3. Wildlife – A smaller percentage of power outages is caused by animals coming in contact with the line or equipment, causing it to fail.
4. Construction – Whether new construction or maintenance, cranes and dig-ins are another major threat to the power supply.
5. Fire – Aboveground feeds are vulnerable to fire destroying equipment at any point along the line’s path.