Central London data centres - too many eggs in one basket?

“The high concentration of data centres within the M25 is itself a serious threat to the integrity of a business’s data security strategy,” says Kelly Smith, managing director of Smartbunker, the UK-based ‘maximum security data centre’ company.

“Recent terrorist events in London have caused us to consider the impact of this type of incident near a London data centre”, continues Mr Smith. “For example the incident on 7th July caused all businesses in Tavistock Square to be evacuated. The area was also declared a crime scene and cordoned off for forensic examination.”

“All staff were excluded for five days, after which only a limited number of personnel could return. No visitors, clients or couriers were allowed access, and this situation lasted for two weeks. The impact was significant.”

Mr Smith continues “Any data centre in this area would have been without vital staff to provide ongoing support. If a company had a critical server in the affected buildings, there would be nobody in the building to help nor would they be able to send their engineers to site. In a nutshell they would be isolated from their server; the slightest technical issue could rapidly become a major problem.”

“If an incident also disrupts power” continues Mr Smith, “the data centre may need to activate its backup generators. Most companies are only equipped for 24 – 72 hours of runtime, which means they would also need to call on additional supplies. In this situation, the comfort of a three hour replenishment contract with a fuel supplier will be short lived when the police stop the tanker at the outer cordon.”

Mr Smith concludes “Businesses are now actively considering a secondary data centre outside the M25. For even greater security, many are looking for a highly remote facility which would be virtually immune from such threats.”

•Date: 25th Nov 2005 • Region: UK • Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
Rate this article or make a comment - click here