Dec. 9, 2002 -- Last week's ice storm in North Carolina left many local businesses in the dark, but the Research Triangle's data centers remained online throughout.
For customers, it reinforced the value of outsourcing their web operations to a data center provider.
"As an online gaming business, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of customers around the world who pay to play, and if the website is down we’re literally out of business," said Phillip Hall, General Manager of iEntertainment in Cary, NC.
"And like most every business in Cary and RTP, our offices have been without power and Internet access," he added.
iEntertainment hosts its servers with Springboard Managed Hosting, which operates an 11,000 square foot data center in Cary, where it houses equipment for more than 160 local customers.
"With one phone call we were operating our business out of the Springboard facility the same day," said Hall of iEntertainment. "That’s what happens when you partner with a locally owned and operated company.”
“The staff at Springboard went above and beyond by providing our staff with emergency space needed to serve our clients without interruption,” said David Morken, president at Durham based Bandwidth.com, who said the provider had earned his "undying loyalty" with its performance. "Without Springboard, we would have been devastated.”
Last Wednesday's ice storm left more than 1 million North Carolina residents without power, including more than 400,000 residents in the Research Triangle area.
Springboard's data center lost grid power at 3:30 am Thursday morning and immediately switched to battery power. Within seconds, Springboard’s 900 KVa Caterpillar diesel generator came to life, keeping the facility running without incident
”During any power outage, our facility is designed to stay on the generator until the power has been restored and has stabilized for 30 minutes," said Jack Tackett, Data Center Operations Manager at Springboard. "All in all, we ran off the generator for about 24 hours. We keep 2,900 gallons of fuel on site, which will allow the facility to run for 72 to 96 hours without refueling, depending on the load."
It was a similar story of Peak 10 Technology Gateways, a regional hosting provider. Peak 10's Raleigh data center lost grid power at 11:30 pm Wednesday and ran on generator power for more than 42 hours before electricity was restored at 5:30 pm Friday afternoon.
"The power is always on at Peak 10," explains Pat O'Brien, Vice President and General Manager for Peak 10's Charlotte, NC Data Center. "In fact, once a week, we simulate a power failure and run all facilities off of our diesel generators to ensure that our power systems will continue to operate seamlessly."
In an extended power outage, the availability of diesel fuel to run the generators becomes critical. Peak 10 refueled its generatoprs twice during the outage, while Springboard refueled once.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, a carrier hotel that stayed online throughout the immediate aftermath of the Twin Towers' collapse later went dark when it could not get a timely delivery of diesel fuel.
Springboard said it worked closely with its provider to ensure the availability of generator fuel.
“Even if the situation had escalated to where the Triangle area had a complete power blackout, Springboard’s customers would have been up and running due to a Premier Power Program agreement with Progress Energy,” said Rich Lee, CEO of Springboard. “Progress Energy remained in contact with us throughout the storm to update us on generator operation and fuel status.”
“During the blackout, we monitored the operation of the backup generator that supports their Data Center and Network Operation Center, and even refueled it at the height of the storm, stated Bill Green,” Manager of Power Protection Solutions for Progress Energy.