Eskom load shedding takes down Internet Solutions data centre

Chris.Geerdts said:
We decided back in May 2010 to go with Teraco. They charge a lot, but there is a big focus on the power supply. It's probably in the next few months that that decision will really be tested.
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Maybe. But as SA tanks maybe you should rather have moved your entire business and family offshore instead.
 
Unbelievable, isn't the whole point of a DC to be able to ride out these power fluctuations?

I don't get it still, why then charge so much for a safe enviroment, and after a bit of loadshedding have everything collapse?

I get it that diesel is needed, i get it that multiple systems need to kick in, but at a DC, of all places where it mustn't happen?

Can't be the full story that the genset fail, must be something else, I see big lawsuits brewing!!!!
 
This is hilarious and sad at the same time. How much they charge for those MPLS services and hosting :sick:
 
kianm said:
This is hilarious and sad at the same time. How much they charge for those MPLS services and hosting :sick:
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Exactly, makes no sense at all,
Or is corruption and misadministration how most things are done these days?

What next? A Telkom exchange? Taking phones down for a whole area?
 
eg2505 said:
Exactly, makes no sense at all,
Or is corruption and misadministration how most things are done these days?

What next? A Telkom exchange? Taking phones down for a whole area?
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Already happened.. We lost parts of the Rosebank exchange earlier in Jan through a loadshed...
 
This is going to get more and more common as time goes on unfortunately.

Generators are designed as a "backup" solution and not really designed to run everyday as the main source of power.
The more load-shedding we have, the more power surges we will have and the more we will hear about generators falling over.
 
Murmaider said:
This is going to get more and more common as time goes on unfortunately.

Generators are designed as a "backup" solution and not really designed to run everyday as the main source of power.
The more load-shedding we have, the more power surges we will have and the more we will hear about generators falling over.
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An average generator at a DC, how long can it run for, before overheating and seizing up?

The mtn guys i spoke to said the gennies can run indefinetly as long as they got fuel...

How true is that? If their maintained properly and all, can they hold out for 2weeks, provided you secured enough diesel to last....
 
TheRoDent said:
Way better than what Eskom's is doing.
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Agreed, they will now expect the companies to function properly without a steady supply of electricity.

I still cannot believe that the government decided to give the Medupi and Kusile projects to lots of small BEE contractors, instead of a big contractor with a proper track record.

More important to line their own pockets than to think of South Africa.
 
eg2505 said:
An average generator at a DC, how long can it run for, before overheating and seizing up?

The mtn guys i spoke to said the gennies can run indefinetly as long as they got fuel...

How true is that? If their maintained properly and all, can they hold out for 2weeks, provided you secured enough diesel to last....
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If they are good gensets, properly maintained, and continuously fueled, they can run indefinitely. The larger gensets are DESIGNED to be extremely robust, and reliable.
 
eg2505 said:
An average generator at a DC, how long can it run for, before overheating and seizing up?

The mtn guys i spoke to said the gennies can run indefinetly as long as they got fuel...

How true is that? If their maintained properly and all, can they hold out for 2weeks, provided you secured enough diesel to last....
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Most DC's really wrongly advertise. I don't know about Randview, but I do know for example that Neotel is a tier3 with N+1 redundancy, and yet they had all their UPS's (A- and B- feed) in the same room - when the fire broke out there, they had to shut down the whole DC as they felt it was cheaper to knock off all servers rather than having to face an upstream surge blowing up equipment. Despite Internet Solutions only having a few minutes, AFAIK, they did manage to contact most of their customers to get a graceful shutdown done (in contrast Neotel just flipped the switch and notified no-one). (Still unforgiveable, if they ran out of diesel or had maintenance issues).

A proper DC would have two separate power feeds (each capable of carrying the full load of the DC). A hosting company would have made arrangements that at any given point in time only one feed is cut and/or cuts happen on a schedule - I am not sure if any of this actually applies and anyone working with power in a DC would be able to provide some clarity.

A DC would have at least 2 generators (each capable of carrying the load of the DC) and most DC's have a 3rd standby. In most cases DC's will switch between generators (and even feeds/UPS) during prolonged runtimes to conduct some maintenance.

The UPS are typical inline of the A/B feeds and ensure clean power to the racks/cages. Although DC standards require that power systems (generators and UPS's) are run-tested every week (at least this is how all the big DC's I worked with in Europe did it) as well as a full load-bearing test done once a month, I doubt that those tests haven that frequent with local DCs. The typical DC UPS system is capable of running full DC load for a minimum of 30 minutes without external-/generator power.

For what it's worth, a typical 1500kW diesel generator will use about 400l of diesel per hour under full load and most DC's carry about 50,000l of fuel in their tanks. If IS ran out of diesel, someone did not do his job in checking fuel levels (about 10 years ago, one of the big 4 banks had most of their DC staff buy cherry cans and fill up at the local petrol station, as their supplier had an issue). AFAIK DCs contract with a service provider who has SLA's with top-ups and maintenance and the DC staff "only" does the run tests.

So if a DC had done a typical weekly run-test and assuming that their tanks are at least 30,000l, they should have seen this. Hell - even our office generator is checked every day in the morning for fuel levels and we have a few hundred litres on standby.
 
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kingrob said:
Agreed, they will now expect the companies to function properly without a steady supply of electricity.

I still cannot believe that the government decided to give the Medupi and Kusile projects to lots of small BEE contractors, instead of a big contractor with a proper track record.

More important to line their own pockets than to think of South Africa.
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Small BEE contractors??? Who told you that?

Medupi - Main Civil works done by Murray and Roberts in a joint venture with Aveng. Steel works carried out by Hitachi and Alstom, who sub-contracted Murray and Roberts to do the actual work.

Kusile - Main Civil Works done by a Joint Venture between WBHO, Group 5, Basil Read and Stefanutti Stocks. Steel works also done by Murray and Roberts.

All these contractors are the 6 biggest contracting companies in the country. All are listed.

All these contractors have proven track records - they have all delivered projects on time and well within budget before Medupi and Kusile. The World Cup Stadia is a typical example. I could list thousands of other projects (Mosgas, Mozal, various mines, smelters, factories, shopping centres etc etc)

Guess what the difference between all those successful projects and Medupi and Kusile are ... Eskom.
 
Sad but true. This is probably the most shocking example of the failure that is BEE...
 
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