MTN Business Data Centre outage

AcidRaZor said:
Actually it's more like this in normal data centers:

Primary UPS bank -> Diesel Generator -> Backup Diesel Generator
Secondary UPS bank -> Diesel Generator -> Backup Diesel Generator

Those people with redundant power supplies have immediate benefit of the secondary UPS bank's

With above system, they can do maintenance on the primary diesel engine even if there is a power outage, the backup gen should kick in. Same with doing maintenance on the backup gen. Primary is available and ready to rock.

So if they'd like to do maintenance on the primary UPS bank? Anytime, switch over to the secondary UPS bank, do your maintenance... done. If there's a power outage it's taken care of. Same with doing maintenance on the secondary.

It really isn't rocket science...
Click to expand...

That makes more sense.

Problem is, that sort of thing is not cheap to set up, and, of course, they'll conveniently ignore it and hope for the best.
 
Man you guys can bltch and moan.

These network failures give me a chance to do other things,its relief sometimes.

Think you all need to take a time out and STEP AWAY from the pc for a few minutes.
 
Joy-Energiser said:
Man you guys can bltch and moan.

These network failures give me a chance to do other things,its relief sometimes.

Think you all need to take a time out and STEP AWAY from the pc for a few minutes.
Click to expand...

Oh sure and the businesses like Iburst that rely on them for their billing? Other businesses that use them for their lively hood?

Don't be so narrowminded.
 
The problem is that for guys like me it causes massive amounts of recovery work and explaining to do. If this happens I often have to run around for hours afterwards trying to make sure our various services are fully operational again. It's the second time this year it happens, it is completely unacceptable!
 
So does anyone know how to get in contact with the person in charge of running the MTN Business Data Centre. I might want to introduce him to the joys of making their own electricity without diesel. ;)
 
Joy-Energiser said:
Man you guys can bltch and moan.

These network failures give me a chance to do other things,its relief sometimes.

Think you all need to take a time out and STEP AWAY from the pc for a few minutes.
Click to expand...

So the thousands of Rands my clients lost due to productivity coming to a halt and (as others stated) having to run around for hours on end fixing things (something that was unplanned for and most probably not billable) is a relief to you?

Grow up please. Some people actually use the internet for business....
 
The_Librarian said:
That makes more sense.

Problem is, that sort of thing is not cheap to set up, and, of course, they'll conveniently ignore it and hope for the best.
Click to expand...

Well any data center is quite expensive to get up and running and keep it up and running. You'd think the millions they pour into networks and connectivity, they'd spend a little on redundancy.

But like I said, this happened last time when Eskom started to **** around with electricity supply... at least the techies has a good sense to start relocating their shiznit
 
So the only difference between yesterday and every other day that MTN delivers bad service is that they had something to blame it on?
 
I don't work at Gallo Manor so I don't know the finer details but this is what happened yesterday.

Firstly...
MTN Business <--- (Huge gap) ---> MTN SP
They may share a name but they are two different companies.

The Eskom power went down at the Gallo Manor hosting facility and when the first generator kicked in a oil line running to the generator broke. The line started spewing oil over the exhaust which created a crapload of smoke and set off the fire alarms. That also caused the first generator to "explode". The fire alarms are set that if they detect a fire it shuts down everything including the automatic failover and that prevented the backup generator from kicking in.

Both the backup generators have weekly, monthly and quarterly maintenance schedules that are done and checked. There simply was no way that anybody could have forseen this happening.

*disclaimer*

This is a unofficial recount of what happened. A official explanation should follow some time today.
 
Crowley said:
The Eskom power went down at the Gallo Manor hosting facility and when the first generator kicked in a oil line running to the generator broke. The line started spewing oil over the exhaust which created a crapload of smoke and set off the fire alarms. That also caused the first generator to "explode". The fire alarms are set that if they detect a fire it shuts down everything including the automatic failover and that prevented the backup generator from kicking in.

Both the backup generators have weekly, monthly and quarterly maintenance schedules that are done and checked. There simply was no way that anybody could have forseen this happening.

*disclaimer*

This is a unofficial recount of what happened. A official explanation should follow some time today.
Click to expand...

...words fail me...
 
Misnomer, "fully redundant"?

Only the penny pinchers in SA could consider a single generator as a "fully redundant system". I have been designing NOK's and computer centres for 25 years and no one in their right mind would consider this as "fully redundant", especially with the common occurrence of state sponsored power outages!
 
MTN made the worst mistake in buying an ISP that had to be pull out of the loo how many times? Then squashed it in with MTN Network Solutions - and re branded it MTN BUSINESS.
MTNSP and MTN Business is the same company The difference = products only. (sims vs data solutions)
Blew itself up, this coming from someone who felt the JSE facility was inferior to Gallor Manor. May the internal power struggle be over soon.
 
exsa said:
Only the penny pinchers in SA could consider a single generator as a "fully redundant system". I have been designing NOK's and computer centres for 25 years and no one in their right mind would consider this as "fully redundant", especially with the common occurrence of state sponsored power outages!
Click to expand...

same people will happily use a single-disk server and tape backup system as good enough for their mission-critical data... :rolleyes:
 
exsa said:
Only the penny pinchers in SA could consider a single generator as a "fully redundant system". I have been designing NOK's and computer centres for 25 years and no one in their right mind would consider this as "fully redundant", especially with the common occurrence of state sponsored power outages!
Click to expand...

Crowley said:
Both the backup generators have weekly, monthly and quarterly maintenance schedules that are done and checked. There simply was no way that anybody could have forseen this happening.
Click to expand...
About that single generator...
 
Crowley said:
I don't work at Gallo Manor so I don't know the finer details but this is what happened yesterday.

Firstly...
MTN Business <--- (Huge gap) ---> MTN SP
They may share a name but they are two different companies.

The Eskom power went down at the Gallo Manor hosting facility and when the first generator kicked in a oil line running to the generator broke. The line started spewing oil over the exhaust which created a crapload of smoke and set off the fire alarms. That also caused the first generator to "explode". The fire alarms are set that if they detect a fire it shuts down everything including the automatic failover and that prevented the backup generator from kicking in.

Both the backup generators have weekly, monthly and quarterly maintenance schedules that are done and checked. There simply was no way that anybody could have forseen this happening.

*disclaimer*

This is a unofficial recount of what happened. A official explanation should follow some time today.
Click to expand...

lol @ bolded part. So my guess is there generators (primary and secondary) are put on the exact same spot. So when a fire does occur, EVERYTHING shuts down?

Genius

*slow clap*
 
AcidRaZor said:
lol @ bolded part. So my guess is there generators (primary and secondary) are put on the exact same spot. So when a fire does occur, EVERYTHING shuts down?

Genius

*slow clap*
Click to expand...
They are in the same area afaik. In case you don't realise but when a fire occurs all electricity gets shut down as well as the backup generator They chose this as opposed to having a generator pissing diesel all over the place while a fire is raging around it.

*slow bow*
 
Crowley said:
They are in the same area afaik. In case you don't realise but when a fire occurs all electricity gets shut down as well as the backup generator They chose this as opposed to having a generator pissing diesel all over the place while a fire is raging around it.

*slow bow*
Click to expand...

Here's some simple logic

If primary_gennie = ****ed OR primary_gennie = ONFIRE OR primary_gennie = pissing_diesel Then
STARTUP(backup_gennie)
SHUTDOWN(primary_gennie)
CALL(fire_brigade)
End If
Click to expand...

But I guess that's too complicated so they opt to shut everything down instead... :rolleyes:

<edit> Shutting down the primary diesel engine would have stopped the diesel "pissing" all over the place due to the faulty fuel line... but maybe it's just me and I'm not seeing this with their eyes...
 
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