Opengate Data Systems Opens Silicon Valley Office – Opengate Data Systems, a Massachusetts company providing data center infrastructure solutions, has opened a new office in Palo Alto, California under the direction of Wenda Puzzo, Regional Sales Manager for Mountain & West Coast Regions. The Palo Alto office has the capability to provide solutions and services that maximize data center utilization as well as improve operational efficiency around today’s critical challenge of power and cooling for owners and builders of high tech facilities, hospitals, government facilities, educational institutions and other mission critical facilities. Press release.

ATI Picks Phoenix NAP for Disaster Recovery - Assessment Technology Incorporated (ATI), a leading provider of online instructional improvement tools and data analysis, has selected the Phoenix NAP data center for its additional disaster recovery (DR) site. The group cited Phoenix NAP’s full redundancy, multiple service providers and timely and professional staff as key influences in its decision to place its DR solution with Phoenix NAP. Press release.

Healthcare Software Firm Picks Immedion – RecordQuest, a Charleston based healthcare software solutions provider,  today announced it has selected Immedion’s Charleston data center to provide data center and managed services as part of an enhanced disaster recovery plan. The Charleston facility will be open early summer 2012. Immedion, with locations in Asheville, NC, as well as Greenville and Columbia, SC, is a leading provider of data center and managed hosting services. RecordQuest provides next generation release of information software and services to the healthcare industry allowing for the secure exchange of patient information between medical facilities and third-party entities including attorneys, insurance companies, other providers and federal and state agencies. Press release.

“Phoenix Nap operates a modern facility which gives us a strong sense of security that our servers will always be functioning,” said James Howarth, Director of Technical Services at Del Taco. “Their dedicated 24/7 staff made our installation and transition experience problem-free.”

“We are thrilled that Del Taco has chosen Phoenix NAP to fulfill its disaster recovery needs,” said Ian McClarty, president of Phoenix NAP. “Residing in one of the safest-from-natural-disaster cities in the United States, our facility is an ideal location for both primary and disaster recovery services, and we look forward expanding our relationship with Del Taco.”

“We continue to invest in the expansion of our facilities,” said Tony Di Benedetto, Managing Partner at Data Centers Canada. “Our Toronto North Facility has grown substantially over the past year and we continue our focus on building quality wholesale colocation space in the Canadian geography.”

The Phase 4 POD environment includes a mixture of private cabinet and cage environments and can accommodate up to 300 watts per square foot power density. All major Canadian network providers are available on-premises, with three managed-Meet-Me-Rooms to provide access to Canadian and global fiber networks.

Energy efficient technologies such as free air cooling and air containment systems will be built into the data center environmen, according to the company, which said the Phase 4 POD construction will be completed by March 2012.

Data Centers Canada develops and manages turn-key data center solutions including colocation and disaster recovery solutions for enterprises. The company operates two facilities in the Toronto area.

As the paper notes an outsourced solution clearly brings value because of the hidden expense with in-house systems. However, there may be sticker shock in looking to transform this critical part of your business. Here you will find a roadmap on how to implement a service and transition from what is typically a costly capital expenditure (CapEx) to a more tolerable operational expenditure (OpEx).

The keys to successfully implementing such a strategy are outlined in five simple steps and each one is explained in detail. Highlighted and advocated is a slow approach. The steps show you how to question and prioritize. This includes how to critically analyze what systems need to be backed up first? What is the effect of these systems on the overall business and how quickly do they need to be recovered?

This whitepaper will give you a better understanding of how to analyze your continuity strategy as well as offer a good alternative to the traditional labor intensive methods you may be using.

Simply put the issue is indifference. Disaster recovery is about what might happen and when operational matters in the here and now need to be addressed then the dollars and manpower will flow to the need.  However that could be a costly mistake if an organization suffers an outage and doesn’t have a disaster recovery plan that has kept pace with the changes in the data center. For optimizing continuity, time and money need to be allocated for the management of three distinct disciplines:

• A continual update of the recovery process
• Maintaining the staff for test and recovery
• Building in the expertise to handle the recovery

As noted most organizations do not have the means to handle this additional process and expense so the answer is in outsourcing.  Besides minimizing the potential losses from a disaster an outsourced solution can also provide other value added benefits to the day to day operations.  In reviewing this whitepaper you will get a sense of how to minimize downtime and manage the disaster recovery lifecycle.

On today’s 10th anniversary of the attacks, America pauses to remember the profound impact of the event on our nation and the world, honoring those who were lost, and grieving with those they left behind. Many of the stories of Sept. 11 are ones of everyday heroism in dealing with the human side of the tragedy as well as the focus required to mount rescue and recovery efforts.

The events of the day, which included a loss of utility power for a large part of NYC, had a ripple effect that spread across many industries and businesses, which confronted challenges in providing critical services, including telecommunications. This included the data centers in the heart of the financial district in lower Manhattan, and especially 25 Broadway, a Telehouse facility located less than a half-mile from the World Trade Center that is home to the New York International Internet eXchange (NYIIX).

Generators Became Crucial

25 Broadway was not damaged in the attacks, but struggled to operate in a landscape of buildings and infrastructure shattered by the attack. Telehouse experienced fuel shortages and generator problems due to overheating (possibly tied to air quality issues and the dust shrouding lower Manhattan) that left customers off-line for parts of Sept. 13, 14 and 15.

At the time I was covering the industry for CarrierHotels.com. Here’s some excerpts from the coverage in September 2001:

“It’s been stressful and hectic from day one, and from minute one,” said John Shields, vice president of operations and engineering for Telehouse America. “There’s been a lot of uncertainty and a lot of chaos.”

The Broadway Center building near the south tip of Manhattan lost grid power from Con Edison soon after the World Trade Center’s twin towers collapsed, and quickly switched over to generator power. At the time, the building had three days of fuel on-site. The generators performed well through Sept. 11 and 12. But as the fuel supply dwindled, security-related restrictions on fuel trucks in the city left Telehouse and other carrier hotel owners scrambling to keep the generators running.

On Sept. 13, after talks with the Port Authority of NY & NJ, Telehouse secured a truckload of generator fuel with police escort through the Holland Tunnel. “We certainly got to the front of the line (for fuel shipments),” said Shields. “We have some very important customers, and they used their influence, especially EDS,” which uses the facility to clear transactions for the European financial system.

But soon after refueling, the generator overheated. On Sept. 14 a street generator from Con Edison was brought online, but soon ran out of fuel. That meant the building – whose tenants include EDS, Internap, Globix, Digital Island and Akamai – without power for much of Sept.14 and parts of Sept. 15.

The facility was able to use a Con Edison replacement generator while its in-house generator was repaired, and the building operated uneventfully on generator power from Sept. 15 until Con Ed restored power to the area on Sept. 26.

Telehouse said an immediate concern is assisting staff who continued working long hours while the rest of America was struggling to process the traumatic events of Sept. 11.

“We tried to be supportive (to our staff) any way we could,” said Anne Cecio, Telehouse Director of Human Resources. “During the worst of it, there was no way to give them the professional consolation they might have needed and we’re addressing that now. Witnessing the horror, and then continuing to work so closely to it, has impacted some of them.”

Telehouse said the extraordinary circumstances helped the company’s staff, customers and suppliers pull together during what normally might be a tense situation.

“Throughout the attack and the difficult days that followed, the outpouring of compassion and support from our clients held Telehouse together,” said Shields.

The economic fallout from 9-11 had a profound impact on the industry, accelerating existing problems associated with the “dot-bomb” bust. On Sept. 26, less than three weeks after the attack, industry leader Exodus Communications filed for bankruptcy.

A month after the attacks, I wrote a series of stories examining the impact of Sept. 11 changed the data center industry. They provide a look back at how leading industry observers assessed the future of the data center industry after a month of events that “left even industry veterans somewhat shell-shocked and wondering where the problems end and the recovery begins.”

Most major data centers appear to have remained online throughout Hurricane Irene, despite leaks and utility outages (Image by likeablerodent via Flickr).

Key East Coast data centers say they weathered Hurricane Irene without any loss of services to customers. In some cases, facilities are operating on generator power after utility outages, while other data centers had to plug minor leaks.

Despite the challenges, the data center industry appears to have upheld its mission – keeping customer servers online through any eventuality. The storm’s impact was felt all the way up the Atlantic coast, including data center hubs in Virginia and northern New Jersey.

QTS
One of the areas that experienced widespread power outages was Richmond, Virginia, where QTS – Quality Technology Services operates a large data center.

“As Hurricane Irene made landfall, Dominion Power suffered extensive outages,” said QTS’ chief technology office, Brian Johnston. “However, QTS’ Richmond Data Center transferred from utility to generator power without impacting our customers. Diesel deliveries will continue to fuel the data center’s generators until electricity is restored, ensuring our customers’ mission-critical data is secure. Dominion Power also confirmed QTS’ on-site substation was not damaged in the storm.

“Dominion Power has assured us they are working to restore power to QTS’ Richmond Data Center as soon as possible,” Johnston added. “In the meantime, we have scheduled fuel deliveries to keep our generators operating efficiently.”

Digital Realty Trust
All of Digital Realty Trust’s facilities on the East coast maintained operations throughout Hurricane Irene, with no customer downtime. “Some facilities did lose primary utility power as a result of the storm,” the company said in a statement. “These facilities successfully transferred to back-up power sources, which operated as designed and supported customer loads until the primary power sources became available again.

“One site in northern New Jersey remains on generator power until the primary utility power becomes more stable, and we are working with our customers to work out the timing for that transition back to utility power,” the company added. “We expect that to happen later today.”

Digital Realty has an agreement with Foster Fuels to provide emergency fuel delivery for generators at any of Digital Realty Trust’s Turn-Key data center facilities in the U.S.

Equinix
Colocation provider Equinix said its East Coast facilities experience no downtime, but its data center staffers were busy throughout the hurricane.

“We had no storm-related power outages at any of our IBXs in the path of Irene,” said Dave Morgan, Vice President of IBX Operations for Equinix. “All of our IBX sites operated normally with fully redundant infrastructure throughout the storm’s duration.

“We had small, non-impacting water leaks at several data centers – one of our Ashburn, VA facilities, one of our Philadelphia facilities, and three of our NY-area facilities (Secaucus, North Bergen, Newark) – that were quickly handled by engineers with leak diversion kits,” Morgan said.

Here’s an overview of other reports from providers:

• NYSE Technologies also said it had reviewed its data center operations, and that the company’s exchanges would be ready for business at the opening bell Monday at 9:30 a.m.
• Central New Jersey was hard hit by flooding and power outages, but Sentinel Data Centers reported no problems. Josh Rabina, co-president of Sentinel, said the company’s Somerset, N.J. facility had no service outages on either of the two diverse 69kV services feeding the building, and no water issues of any type.
• CoreSite also reports that its East Coast data centers had 100 percent uptime throughout the storm.
• FiberMedia said its facilities throughout Northern New Jersey, lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Westchester all remained online.

We’ll update throughout the day as we get more reports from data center providers.

Image by likeablerodent via Flickr.

Huge Data Growth and Effective Disaster Recovery – Joe Forgione, SEPATON, Inc. – August 9, 2011 – Results from a recent industry survey show data protection of large amounts of data is a concern among large enterprises. With data volumes continuing to climb, enterprise IT managers may need to rethink their approach to data protection.

How The Cloud Changes Disaster Recovery – Mike Klein, Online Tech – July 26, 2011 – There are a lot of benefits with cloud computing – cost-effective resource use, rapid provisioning, scalability and elasticity. This guest columnist asserts that one of the most significant advantages to cloud computing is the sea change it delivers for disaster recovery.

Health Check For Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Richard Dolewski, WTS – March 10, 2011 – Just as a health checkup can point out areas where your body is not operating at its peak, your Disaster Recovery Plan needs a regular review to make sure your IT systems and staff are fully prepared for any disaster that may occur.

Disaster Recovery Plans: Practice Makes Perfect – Richard Dolewski, WTS – April 26, 2011 – Once you’ve developed and implemented a Disaster Recovery Plan, your job is just beginning; you must test it — not just once, but regularly — to reflect the changing dynamics of your computing environment.

Disaster Recovery Scenario: Stick to the Plan – Richard Dolewski, WTS – September 28, 2010 – No one likes disasters and downtime. Prudent operations managers have business continuity plans that can assist in a crisis and support organizational priorities and goals as well.

If you’d like to dive deeper into the issue, visit our Disaster Recovery White Papers channel.

A satellite image of Hurricane Irene as it gathers strength in the Atlantic. (Image: NOAA)

As Hurricane Irene grows and strengthens over the warm waters of the Carribean, forecasters are predicting a northward storm path that could entail hurricane force winds and rain over much of the coastal area of the Eastern United States. With Irene’s projected hit on major population centers in the metropolitan areas of the East Coast, huge numbers of people are turning to websites for information and predictions of the storm track.

This storm is expected to be one of 7 to 10 hurricanes (top winds of 39 mph or higher) this season, according to NOAA information released in early August when it raised the number of named storms and hurricanes expected this year.

Last year, Data Center Knowledge spoke to major weather websites about how they keep serving up content during peak loads – Weather Sites Gird for Hurricanes -  such as Hurricane Irene. The Weather Channel, Storm Pulse and the National Hurricane Center are all geared up, just as citizens are evacuating the Carolinas or are getting emergency supplies to hunker down and be ready for the potential storm hit.

Terremark, whose NAP of the Capital Region data fortress in Culpeper, Virginia is about 35 miles from the quake’s epicenter in Mineral, Va., reported no issues. Also unaffected was QTS – Quality Technology Services, which operates a huge data center in Richmond.

“QTS is pleased to report that neither its Richmond Data Center nor its Jersey City Data Center experienced interruptions,” reported chief technology officer Brian Johnston. ”QTS implements disaster preparedness precautions at each of its 12 state-of-the-art facilities to ensure our customer’s mission-critical data is secure in unlikely events like today’s earthquake.”

DuPont Fabros, Digital Realty Trust and Equinix all reported no issues with any of their facilities related to the earthquake and its aftermath. Both companies own multiple data centers in northern Virginia.

Sungard Availability, which focuses on disaster recovery services, also reported no impact to its operations.

“Twelve of SunGard Availability Services’ facilities in the Northeast were in the zone of today’s moderate earthquake that was centered in Virginia,” said SunGard Availability Services spokesperson Marifran Manzo-Ritchie. At this time, all systems are working normally and we have no reports or indications of any power outages in any of our data centers or workforce recovery centers.  SunGard Availability Services remains on high alert. We are in contact with our customers and we continue to monitor facilities for any incidental damage or related issues.”