9/14/17 – Miami, FL
Over the weekend, Hurricane Irma made landfall on Florida moving south to north. The storm resulted in tornadoes, flooding, destroyed buildings, loss of power, and more.
As many of you may know, our primary data center is located in Miami, FL. Some potential customers voice their concerns about the storm, but hurricanes have never taken our servers offline. This includes Irma.
Taking the Necessary Precautions to Ensure Uptime
Being in Miami, we understand that a direct impact from a hurricane is possible each year. As such we’ve put systems, policies, and more into place to ensure that our data center can withstand powerful hurricanes like Irma.
It starts with the building itself. Miami’s building codes are very strict and require that buildings be built in a way that ensures survival against powerful hurricanes. So the structure itself will be able to withstand powerful winds and flash flooding.
But, what about the servers inside? The power? The network? Well, we thought about that too.
We’ve built a fault-tolerant network and infrastructure with:
- Fault-tolerant Internet connectivity with three or more providers at minimal speeds of 10Gbit/s per provider link
- The fault-tolerant BGP4 route advertisement
- Fault-tolerant Cisco core routers
- Fault-tolerant power systems with multiple building-wide UPS systems and diesel generators
- Fault tolerance through unique fiber-optic cable entrances and paths
- Onsite Tier 1 carrier equipment
- 10Gbps Ethernet speed to all distribution routers and customer connection switches
During storms such as Irma, we also bring in extra staff to provide support and keep things running smoothly during the storm.
Effects of Irma on Our Service
With all those precautions, how did we fare? Exactly as planned. Our 100% uptime record is still intact, and we were able to keep all customers online without interruption.
We did have the power go out, as did millions other in the state, but when that occurred, our UPS backups and diesel generators worked perfectly. They kicked in without any hiccups and enabled us to continue service despite being without power for a few days.
Along with power loss, some asked about the possibility of losing internet. We never lost internet connectivity thanks to our carrier-neutral internet connectivity and redundant/fault tolerant tier-one carriers.
Irma’s impact on the region
We may have survived the storm without losing our 100% uptime guarantee, but many in the region were not as fortunate. Homes have been flooded or destroyed from north Florida to the islands in the southeast Caribbean. If you’re interested in helping some of those in need, we recommend reading this to see how you can best help:
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