Las emetroetroetroetroetropresas de Texas no son las únicas que pueden necesitar revisar la continuidad del negocio y los planes de recuperación de desastres después del climetroetroetroetroetroa invernal poco cometroetroetroetroetroún del estado.
Los cortes de energía y las tuberías de estallido que paralizaron a metroetroetroetroetroillones de residentes y emetroetroetroetroetropresas en Texas tametroetroetroetroetrobién afectaron a las emetroetroetroetroetropresas y las agencias gubernametroetroetroetroetroentales en los estados que van desde Florida hasta California.
El Departametroetroetroetroetroento de Servicios de Atención de la Salud de California (DHCS), por ejemetroetroetroetroetroplo, confirmetroetroetroetroetroó que su Sistemetroetroetroetroetroa de Informetroetroetroetroetroación de Gestión de Medicaid y su sitio web Medi-Cal habían bajado de aproximetroetroetroetroetroadametroetroetroetroetroente 2 A.metroetroetroetroetro.en febrero.15 hasta 6:30 A.metroetroetroetroetro.en febrero.17 Debido a un corte de energía relacionado con el climetroetroetroa que afecta el Centro de datos IBM con sede en Dallas que los alojaetroetro.
One of the largest cometroetroetroetroetropanies to report an outage was State Farmetroetroetroetroetro. The insurance giant alerted custometroetroetroetroetroers about systemetroetroetroetroetro connectivity issues "due to the extremetroetroetroetroetroe weather" via a Facebook post at 2:04 p.metroetroetroetroetro.en febrero.15. Updates at night and the following metroetroetroetroetroorning instructed custometroetroetroetroetroers to reach out via direct metroetroetroetroetroessage to the cometroetroetroetroetropany's Facebook or Twitter accounts if they needed assistance.A las 12:32 p.metroetroetroetroetro.en febrero. 17, a Facebook post indicated the metroetroetroetroetroajority of State Farmetroetroetroetroetro systemetroetroetroetroetros had been restored.
State Farmetroetroetroetroetro declined requests to provide metroetroetroetroetroore informetroetroetroetroetroation on the nature of the outage. Although its headquarters is in Bloometroetroetroetroetroington, Ill., State Farmetroetroetroetroetro built a metroetroetroetroetroajor data and operations center in Richardson, Texas, in the last decade, according to Dallas news reports.
Bedero de Greater Dallas para centros de datos
Texas -- and especially Dallas and cometroetroetroetroetrometroetroetroetroetrounities north of the city -- has becometroetroetroetroetroe a hotbed for data centers and colocation cometroetroetroetroetropanies in the last 10 years, noted Bob Gill, a research vice president at Gartner. Draws include the location in the metroetroetroetroetroiddle of the country, the availability of land, energy and fiber connectivity, favorable regulations and taxes, and the dearth of weather extremetroetroetroetroetroes and natural disasters.
"Todavía creo que Texas es un buen lugar para un centro de datos", dijo Gill. "Outside of Houston and down along the Gulf, Texas is considered pretty benign frometroetroetroetroetro the perspective of natural disasters.Los acaban de atrapar por este."
Gill said a "confluence of worst-case scenarios" lined up at the sametroetroetroetroetroe timetroetroetroetroetroe to cause problemetroetroetroetroetros. For instance, the uncharacteristic duration of a snowstormetroetroetroetroetro over a widespread area created transportation issues for businesses that depend on fuel to run their generators.
Yet Gill said, despite the "prolonged metroetroetroetroetroisery" in Texas, metroetroetroetroetroajor data center providers and colocation cometroetroetroetroetropanies that he covers reported no outages to himetroetroetroetroetro.Dijo que sus teléfonos no estaban sonando con las llametroadas al cliente. And his advice on business continuity to those that did experience an outage remetroetroetroetroetroains the sametroetroetroetroetroe.
"If you positively, absolutely can't get by without that data center being down, you better have it replicated sometroetroetroetroetroewhere else," Gill said. "We should have our eyes wide open frometroetroetroetroetro the perspective of business continuity around the country, and we should be metroetroetroetroetroulti-region."
Texas Power Outage destaca el factor de riesgo
One potential risk factor that is unique to metroetroetroetroetroany parts of Texas is its independent, privatized power grid that this metroetroetroetroetroonth's freezing temetroetroetroetroetroperatures drove to the brink of collapse. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) ordered rolling outages to prevent a cometroetroetroetroetroplete blackout. Five ERCOT board metroetroetroetroetroemetroetroetroetroetrobers resigned this week in the face of inquiries about the grid's preparation for winter conditions.
Forrester Research senior analyst Brent Ellis said the city of El Paso could serve as a potential metroetroetroetroetroodel for ERCOT. El Paso was spared the metroetroetroetroetroassive outages that afflicted metroetroetroetroetrouch of Texas because it gets power through a Western Interconnection grid that includes other Western states, northwestern Mexico and two Canadian provinces. Ellis said ERCOT should consider connections to other grids in North Ametroetroetroetroetroerica because winterization efforts could prove problemetroetroetroetroetroatic in Texas.
"They have a lot of smetroetroetroetroetroaller generation facilities there that would have to fork over the metroetroetroetroetrooney to do the winterization, and that affects how metroetroetroetroetrouch they charge custometroetroetroetroetroers for their electricity," Ellis said. "There is a certain point where you can't charge people metroetroetroetroetrouch metroetroetroetroetroore metroetroetroetroetrooney without having custometroetroetroetroetroers either metroetroetroetroetroove or decide not to use as metroetroetroetroetrouch electricity."
Ellis expects that metroetroetroetroetroajor technology cometroetroetroetroetropanies already based in Texas, such as Dell, and those planning to relocate their headquarters to Texas, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle, will have serious discussions with Texas legislators to address the power issues.
"Texas has been trying to invite industry to have metroetroetroetroetroore jobs and metroetroetroetroetroore metroetroetroetroetrooney in the state. They don't want to becometroetroetroetroetroe California.Quieren metroantenerse privatizados y desregulados ", dijo Ellis."Pero, si quieren poder entretener el metroundo de alta tecnología, hay cosas que tendrán que abordar cometroo estado. They will see tech businesses leave rather than metroetroetroetroetroove there if they can't provide a stable environmetroetroetroetroetroent to operate."
Business continuity planning across metroetroetroetroetroany states
DHCS faced scrutiny over how extremetroetroetroetroetroe weather conditions in Texas could affect Medicaid services on the west coast. DHCS operates its own data center in Sacrametroetroetroetroetroento, Calif., but it also leases or owns equipmetroetroetroetroetroent at facilities in Colorado, Connecticut, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington to host services, systemetroetroetroetroetros and data, according to Carol Sloan, the departmetroetroetroetroetroent's public informetroetroetroetroetroation officer.
Sloan said DHCS plans no metroetroetroetroetroajor changes to its business continuity strategy in the wake of the Texas outage because the departmetroetroetroetroetroent routinely looks to imetroetroetroetroetroprove systemetroetroetroetroetro uptimetroetroetroetroetroe, build redundancies across locations, and increase recovery timetroetroetroetroetroe objectives. DHCS assesses and metroetroetroetroetroigrates applications to cloud service providers, such as AWS, and builds metroetroetroetroetroodern, cloud-native applications on a continual basis, she said.
In response to its Dallas data center outage, IBM issued the following statemetroetroetroetroetroent: "Our facilities in Texas endured the sametroetroetroetroetroe extremetroetroetroetroetroe weather that other businesses across the state experienced. We worked diligently to overcometroetroetroetroetroe the challenges of freezing temetroetroetroetroetroperatures and rolling blackouts to restore service for our clients."
Another non-Texan organization to suffer an online service outage due to a problemetroetroetroetroetro with a data center provider in Dallas prometroetroetroetroetroised custometroetroetroetroetroers a "large-scale investigation" into the root cause of the incident. Availity, which operates a health informetroetroetroetroetroation network to facilitate electronic transactions and collaboration and is based in Jacksonville, Fla., dijo el febrero.dieciséis downtimetroetroetroetroetroe resulted frometroetroetroetroetro an electrical switching failure at its Dallas data center. Availity declined to nametroetroetroetroetroe the provider due to security and privacy concerns.
Anatometroetroetroetroetroy of an outage
Availity COO Paul Joiner said the rolling power outages required the data center to shift back and forth frometroetroetroetroetro utility power to generator power. The data center provider successfully transitioned in the hours before the incident, but a failure between redundant metroetroetroetroetroanagemetroetroetroetroetroent plane switches caused a power loss to the circuits to Availity's equipmetroetroetroetroetroent. Although the provider restored power within an hour, Availity noticed that custometroetroetroetroetroer-facing applications were offline.
"When there's a sudden and cometroetroetroetroetroplete power loss, it increases the risk of cometroetroetroetroetroponent failures and requires extensive metroetroetroetroetroanual intervention and troubleshooting," Joiner said. "In this situation, we lost access to the network metroetroetroetroetroanagemetroetroetroetroetroent plane that allows engineers to access, metroetroetroetroetroonitor and metroetroetroetroetroanage connected devices."
Teametroetroetroetroetro metroetroetroetroetroemetroetroetroetroetrobers metroetroetroetroetroade a determetroetroetroetroetroination that, with the power restored and stable, the quickest path to recovery would be bringing up the Dallas site rather than switching to their secondary data center in Atlanta. Availity's systemetroetroetroetroetros were back online by about 5:30 p.metroetroetroetroetro.en febrero.dieciséis.
"As a result of this incident, we are exametroetroetroetroetroining a numetroetroetroetroetrober of people, process and technology imetroetroetroetroetroprovemetroetroetroetroetroent opportunities," Joiner said. "We expect the full results of this investigation will bring about new practices that will help us avoid simetroetroetroetroetroilar issues in the future."
