October 07, 2020
The adage, ‘hope for the best, plan for the worst’, is particularly apt for the data center industry right now.
Investment in new data center infrastructure is often based on an optimistic take of future technology demand but operators are also aggressively pragmatic when it comes to preventing downtime.
No matter what the cause – faulty equipment, cybercriminals or grid-level power outages – investment in resilient infrastructure combined with rigorous operating practices should ensure the lights stay on or, at worst, only go off for the minimum amount of time.
Unfortunately, as recently released research Post Pandemic Data Centers from Uptime Institute Intelligence points out, many operators were largely blindsided by Covid-19.
While there appear to have been relatively few (public) examples of Covid-19 related downtime over the last few months, the pandemic has put additional pressure on everything from data center design and construction to supply chains and staffing.