Business Continuity Planning for Data Centers and Systems: A Strategic Implementation Guide

Chapter 2. Acts of God: Mission-Critical Interruptions and Man-Made Challenges

Real threats for data centers are regional acts of God, which can be memorialized "on-line" to the trained eye:

• Hurricanes in Florida

• Earthquakes in California

• Snow in western New York

• Droughts in Texas

• Tornadoes in the Midwest

Do not kid yourself; there are data centers in all these locations.

When it comes to siting, or locating, data centers, imagined or unlikely events take up most steering committee strategy meetings. Similar to the phenomena that anyone who has bought a house is an overnight expert in commercial real estate, quite often everyone on the data center siting steering committee is a siting expert. Every data center manager, operator, engineer, or information technology (IT) professional is an expert in acts of God; more interestingly, often all are overnight experts in human intervention (terrorism) or man-made disasters (e.g., highways, railroads, nuclear facilities, commercial air fields, fixed base operations, waste facilities, etc.). In fact, however, there are few experts in either field. There are and were mature professionals with relevant history and experiences. Many are patient and wise enough to study historical data on acts of God and possibilities or relevance of an act happening to a specific site. The passion and emotion erupts when the consequences of business impact analysis are announced and we work to ensure that such adverse events do not happen at a site.

These user observations ...