One of the nice things about having data centers in Michigan is that we are far from hurricanes. One of our competitors, ThePlanet, have a Houston based data center that was struck by an explosion last year and is now in the path of Hurricane Ike. Below is what their hosting evangelist has to say about their preparations. Good luck guys!
Ike is heading our direction, but similar to our preparation for Gustav, we’ve gone through quite a bit of additional work to ensure we are ready for what appears to be a more direct severe weather impact.
In our Houston data center facilities, we’ve secured all exterior windows and doors and taken precautions to check the roofs, exterior boundaries and the surrounding areas for loose objects and equipment that could be affected by hurricane-force winds. For reference, the actual computer rooms in our data centers do not have exterior windows, as you would expect.
For data center power, we have confirmed our fuel levels and have brought in an additional 10,000 gallons as backup. Backup generators at both data centers and our Houston headquarters are prepared to shoulder the power needs of the data centers and our downtown offices. We pay premium fees year-round with several providers to guarantee that we are at the front of the line if we need additional fuel. With our current fuel supply, we can continuously power our facilities for up to a week without any required backup.
On the customer support side, we have transferred many of our Houston-based staff members to our Dallas offices to continue service and support availability throughout the weekend should that be required … these departments include technical support, billing care and network operations. In addition, our Houston data centers will be fully-staffed and have plenty of food and water provisions for employees to remain in place for several days.
Our facilities staff will remain onsite at all of our locations for the duration of the severe weather threat, so we will be able to respond immediately to any hurricane-related events or problems.
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-Kevin Hazard
Web Hosting Evangelist
How Fast Is Your Network?
1 response so far ↓
1 David // Sep 12, 2008 at 4:18 am
I was wrong.
We should take a different stance. I am sorry.
We should extend an offer for hosting to the people that want to avoid data loss. Extend a reassuring and helpful hand.
please delete my first two posts
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