Being Prepared is the Key for Emergencies

The impact of Hurricane Sandy was an eye-opener not only for the government agencies but also for the world of technology, especially the infrastructure managers. Massive destruction of offices, major power failures combined with staff absentees made life miserable for companies badly hit by Hurricane Sandy.

Several websites such as Gawker.com, Gizmodo.Com and Livestream.com experienced website shutdowns because of power outages at their data center facilities. One thing became very clear for many IT staff members in data centers during after Hurricane Sandy; the lack of preparation they had for such a catastrophe.

The hurricane was not something that came out of the blue. Its movements were recorded and forecasted for over a week, yet many organizations failed to take any precautions. While no one could predict the exact magnitude of destruction, lack of preparedness was a critical factor for data center downtime.

These disasters happen. Periodic drills should be conducted at data centers to assess the ability of the staff and the management to cope with such severely restraining conditions. Planning and preparedness are key factors when it comes to facing regional emergencies like the situation in New York City, where many data centers lost power because of the impact of Hurricane Sandy.

If you make use of geographic diversity from reliable data center providers, then many these preventive mechanisms would be already in place to help reduce your worries about nature’s wrath. Want to talk more about avoiding disaster? Contact us/a>!

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.