Avoiding downtime remains a top priority for all managers of critical infrastructure. But as technology changes, and as the demands placed on IT change, so do the types, frequency and impacts of outages, as well as the best practices in outage avoida...
In early March 2021, a hacker group publicly exposed the username and password of an administrative account of a security camera vendor. The credentials enabled them to access 150,000 commercial security systems and, potentially, set up subsequent at...
The catastrophic fire that occurred at OVHcloud’s SBG2 data center in Strasbourg, France (see Note 93, The OVHcloud data center fire) has led many operators to question their vulnerability to fires. Fires at data centers are a constant concern, but a...
The fire that destroyed a data center (and damaged others) at the OVHcloud facility in Strasbourg, France, on March 10-11, 2021, has raised a multitude of questions from concerned data center operators and customers around the world. Chief among thes...
Data center operators routinely maintain multiple physical perimeters against intruders and regulate the activities of the people inside. However, cloud computing and increased remote monitoring and automation bring new security challenges. Human and...
Transitioning to renewable energy use is an important, but not easily achieved, goal. Although the past decade has seen significant improvements in IT energy efficiency, there are indications that this may not continue. Moore’s Law may be slowing, mo...
Recent extreme weather-related events in the US (the big freeze in Texas, fires on the west coast) have once again highlighted the need for data center operators to reassess their risks in the face of climate change. The topic is discussed in depth i...
In Uptime Institute’s recent report on preparing for the extreme effects of climate change (The gathering storm: Climate change and data center resiliency), there were over a dozen references to the dangers of extremely hot weather, which can overwhe...
In every region of the world, data center capacity is being dramatically expanded. Across the board, the scale of capacity growth is stretching the critical infrastructure sector’s talent supply. The availability (or lack) of specialist staff will be...
Power failures have always been one of the top causes of serious IT service outages. The loss of power to a data center can be devastating, and its consequences have fully justified the huge expense and effort that go into preventing such events. But...
Sustainability is becoming a key issue for data center operators. Investors, customers and legislators are increasingly demanding carbon emissions reporting and 100% renewable energy use. Organizations risk charges of greenwashing if purchased renewa...
The pandemic has led to a renewed interest by data center managers in remote monitoring, management and automation. Uptime Institute has fielded dozens of inquiries about these approaches in recent months, but one in particular stands out: What will ...
Recent events have heightened concerns around physical security for many data center operators, and with good reason: the pandemic means many data centers may still be short-staffed, less time may have been available for review of and training on rou...
Data center operators (and enterprise IT) are generally cautious adopters of new technologies. Only a few (beyond hyperscale operators) try to gain a competitive advantage through their early use of technology. Rather, they have a strong preference t...
Through 2021 and beyond, the world will begin to recover from its acute crisis — COVID-19 — and will turn its attention to other matters. Few if any of these issues will be as important as climate change, a chronic condition that will become more pre...
Andy Lawrence
Intelligence Team