Sandy and vulnerable infrastructure

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

One of the surprises for me in the aftermath of Sandy was the impact that Sandy had on some Internet services. To me, this was a foreseeable event. Not that I have any inside information on predicting storm surges, but, this event was within the realm of possibility already, and, it nearly happened Aug 28-29 last year. And yet, somehow, some companies were caught unprepared even with the long leadtime that this had.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2046034.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...89T0TA20121030

Looked at another way -- I can't predict something like this in advance, but, I can predict with high confidence that an event like this will happen somewhere. Why leave your company vulnerable to such a probable occurrence?

[snberk103]

Money - and time-frames.

It costs money to do it right. Money is a finite resource, so companies try to spend only as much as they have to. In this case, obviously, it wasn't enough.

Companies also think in time-frames. They will calculate that the disaster may not happen for 30 years, and they need to invest in other things that will help the bottom line for the next 1-5 years... so they gamble the disaster will wait a bit. They lost this bet.

The said thing is... the hosting company is probably the one who is going to go out of business. Even if they have insurance and can recover their costs their clients are going to be moving to other providers. However the hosting company (likely) didn't do anything wrong. They were probably the lowest bidder.... and unless they promised redundancy that they couldn't provide .... they followed their contract by providing basic services at a budget price.

Their clients are the ones who should be held accountable, but won't. They'll talk about how they have moved their operations... and how they have learned a valuable lesson... and they'll be back in business carrying on as if nothing happened. But it's these clients who chose the budget hosting operation in the first place, and will then abandon the hosting company as a way to gain some credibility back...that they should have been earning in the first place. OK.... /rant.... in case it wasn't obvious.... I agree with the OP.

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Here is another shortsighted operation... a quote taken from the Reuter's story...

As Consolidated Edison reported that parts of lower Manhattan faced up to four days without power, data center employees tried frantically to keep generators running. At one data center, employees reportedly hauled 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel up 17 flights of stairs to keep the generators running until electricity was restored.

Who installs generators, but then doesn't install a system to keep them running when they are actually needed? I hope the employees sue the management for any injuries sustained. That is just stupid. I'm a photographer, and even I know you have to arrange for fuel for a generator. Would not have cost much more to hook the existing fuel pump up to the only source of electricity during a power failure. Sigh. Ok... now I'm down ranting....