What does it take to prepare a data center to remain functional during a natural disaster? According to two executives, it takes a village.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the US experienced 28 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters last year, an unprecedented milestone that surpassed 2020’s record number of 22 disasters.
However, there are no days off for the more than 5,000 data centers that occupy the nation. For this reason, two executives told IT Brew that they are constantly gearing up their data centers to withstand natural disasters that come their way.
Head start. Jenny Gerson, senior director of sustainability at colocation data center provider DataBank, told IT Brew that preparation for potential natural disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton begins years in advance at the inception of a new facility.
“[The] first step we always take is in the siting of our data centers,” Gerson said, adding that DataBank carefully evaluates what natural disasters may occur near potential facilities during the building process. Currently, DataBank sites all of its facilities outside of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s 500-year floodplain, areas with a 0.2% chance of flooding in any given year.
After determining the best location for new facilities, data center executives are tasked with ensuring the infrastructure can withstand potential threats. Ryan Mallory, COO of Flexential, a data center colocation service provider with over 40 data centers nationwide, told IT Brew that data centers across Flexential’s 19 markets are designed purposely to protect against their respective weather-related threats.
“In the Pacific Northwest, you’re in a seismic zone, so you have to make sure that you’re anchoring and you’re building your facilities accordingly,” Mallory said, as an example.
In case of emergency. Once a data center is established, it is equipped with an emergency response plan (ERP) that can be executed in the face of disasters. Mallory and Gerson both told IT Brew these plans are constantly updated to remain in line with emerging threats.
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While ERPs vary from site to site, Gerson walked IT Brew through how the emergency response plan for one of its Atlanta data centers helped to keep the site functional after it lost grid power during Hurricane Helene to illustrate what can occur during a crisis.
“In Atlanta, we have two utility power feeds coming in, so there’s already redundancy right there coming from the grid,” Gerson said. “Should the grid go down, we have these walls of batteries that support the data center, while an uninterrupted power system kicks on.”
Gerson added that this uninterrupted power system then aids the data center before switching to generator power.
“This whole process is so smooth that a customer would not even notice that there was a change of power,” Gerson said. “There’s no downtime whatsoever.”
Day in, day out. Both Gerson and Mallory told IT Brew that preparation for inclement weather begins before the weeks leading up to an incident. Gerson said that DataBank performs regular preventative maintenance at each of its centers throughout the year.
“We walk the roofs twice a year with roofers, making sure the roofs are in good shape,” Gerson said. “We’re doing testing of all of the equipment at least twice a year, if not more than that.”
As for Flexential, Mallory told IT Brew that the data center colocation service provider spends a large amount of time planning how it will navigate best- and worst-case scenarios.
“Every year we look at it and we’re trying to get better with everything we do because we have to expect the unexpected,” Mallory said.