data center space

Fri Apr 21 19:28:52 UTC 2006

Joseph S D Yao wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 09:34:41AM -0700, Philip Lavine wrote:
>> Can someone tell me if I am out of luck. I am trying to get a 10x10 cage in New Jersey (Jersey City area) but it seems everybody is at capacity. What happened? 
> 
> 
> My guess (this being NJ) is an aftereffect of the 9/11/2001 disaster.
> By five years after, most companies who could be affected by such an
> outage may have relocated a continuing-operations set of machines to one
> or more colo data centers.  I don't know why the data centers would not
> have expanded to meet the influx, though.

Five years after 9/11 you would think that people would have located 
business continuity ops much further away (assuming the businesses are 
based in NYC) than NJ.  I'm sure that regulations require them to be x 
miles or in another state.  But all things should considered... even the 
capability for major catastrophic incident(s) to affect primary and 
(nearby) secondary sites.

I think the reasons are probably due to companies/governments thinking 
(hoping?) that in the event of a catastrophic event the business would 
be able to get ppl from site A to site B.  To me it is ridiculous to 
assume that anyone would be left at site A, or even in the vicinity of 
site A.  And if they are still around site A after a catastrophic event, 
would they behave normally and could they be counted on (families, 
fears, trauma, etc)?  I'm an employee, but in desperate times my family 
comes first (that is a no brainer decision that every CIO should think 
about).

Put your major data/ops centers on different continents, or at least on 
different coasts.  Not big enough to do that?  Outsource to someone who 
is.  Don't want to spend the money?  Partner with a non-competing 
similar business that is strategically located away from yours.  Don't 
do the minimum to insure your business survival, do the maximum.

Disclaimer: I work for someone who provides outsourcing services 
including the area of business continuity.

-Jim P.