American Internet took foresighted steps to avert delays and power outages before they happened.
"It's written into our lease that we and our contractors have full and uninhibited access to the roof over our space. The owner is a licensed electrician so he made sure we have enough power for the foreseeable future. We also have an 80-kw generator standing by to power our three AC units, although we haven't needed it yet." Nonetheless, Satchell's servers were laid low once, as he recounts:
"Our AC failure stemmed not from a blowout but from a part failure: A fan belt broke on the primary AC unit. The secondary unit wasn't able to get rid of enough BTUs, so the room rose to 95 degrees. Our morning person opened the server room door and was blasted by the heat. He ran around opening every door possible, and scrounging every fan he could find to get air exchange set up. We lost a couple of servers and two UPS units to the heat.
"When we discovered the broken belt, we went to Home Depot to find the closest match, and then ordered three spares from our AC supplier. We still have one of them -- one of the replacements was eaten up before we got the motor properly aligned, which was the source of the problem."
A part in the hand is worth two in the catalog, which may well be out of date. You do keep spare CPUs, motherboards, and other IT parts handy, don't you? What about fan belts and compressor motors? And where is your email alert server located?
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
