A “sophisticated explosive device” was responsible for the explosion at a Paypal network operation center in San Jose Tuesday night, local police say. “Whatever caused it was pretty strong,” San Jose Fire Capt. Jose Guerrero told the
Mercury News [1], adding that the blast broke a large, thick piece of safety glass and overturned furniture inside the building. The company received no threats before or after the blast, which happened at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in a landscaped breezeway outside the 100,000-square-foot, four-story building.
Fortunately there were no injuries, and the company’s web site
experienced no disruptions [2] during the period of the explosion. The area damaged by the explosion was apparently between the NOC and an adjacent building.
If police investigators have a theory, they’re not sharing it with the press, including whether the Halloween timing of the event has significance. But the incident provides a reminder about why there are no windows in data centers, and why some facilities have Kevlar-reinforced walls. While we await further news on the blast, it’s not a bad idea to review ways to
improve the physical security of your data center [3].
Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.
Article printed from Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com
URL to article: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2006/11/01/paypal-blast-used-sophisticated-device-2/
URLs in this post:
[1] Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/15903292.htm
[2] experienced no disruptions: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/11/01/paypal_remains_online_despite_explosion.html
[3] improve the physical security of your data center: http://www.csoonline.com/read/110105/datacenter.html
[4] Rich Miller: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/author/richm/
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