San Fran Goes Dark, Cripples IT
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on 07.25.07
Probably know that San Fran went dark yesterday for two hours, affecting 30 to 50 thousand customers. Granted, lack of a live wire is bad for people, but it's also bad for data; the blackout took many big internet sites offline, including 365 Main, Craigslist, Technorati, Yelp, AdBrite, TypePad, and LiveJournal. Imagine the outrage; not only was I prevented from blogging, but my non-stop feed to the free section of Craigslist wasn't working!
Power outrages are increasingly common; Pakistan and India have daily cuts, and the whole island of Jamaica regularly loses power. What is most unusual is that strom shortages are appearing in the developed world as well. For example, Barcelona went dark today (350,000 without power), and the St. Louis Arch went dead on Sunday, trapping dozens of tourists.
Power outages are caused by various factors including load, aging infrastructure, and chaotic mishap, and cities are fraught with all of these items. Bottom line for IT is that urban areas are no place for your data to grow up in; get it out. The Land of Fire and Ice might be a good try; barring that, at least run your operation efficiently, ala Google.::SFGate
"Strom shortages"?
I miss Senator Thurmond as much as anyone, but I don't see his mischevious ghost linked to this.
[German for power mjo]
>Power outrages are increasingly common
I know I'd be outraged. Or perhaps they meant "outage."
[Actually it was an error, but I like it! mjo]
Power outages are the reason I don't like grid tied AE systems. The grid is too old, too over capacity, and too unstable. I'd much rather have some local batteries so I can still have power when the grid goes down, which is far too often.
Actually Eugene, grid-tie RE is the solution for the aging infrastructure. If everyone had solar on their roof (or wind, hydro, whatever) tied to the grid, and the utilities installed energy storage solutions every few miles on the local grid (think flywheels, graphite thermal, "liquid" batteries) the long-distance transmission lines would be obsolete and blackouts would be nearly impossible. Not going grid-tie prevents you to load-balance with your neighbors.
The internet's going to be a sluggish place after our next Loma Prieta-sized quake, too. Infrastructure is fragile stuff.
Sadly, it's not just the grid that is out-dated, it's also what's plugged into it.