Power Woes Could Leave Web Surfers In Dark

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The cascading effects of the California Electricity Crisis continue to mount.

Hyperlink: http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/9592.html

Power Woes Could Leave Web Surfers in the Dark By Jon Swartz and Michelle Kessler, Special to NewsFactor Network

May 9, 2001

The latest California blackout, which affected Exodus Communications customer Yahoo!, does not bode well for what some think may be a long hot summer for Web companies.

When instant messaging and other services at Yahoo went down for 3 hours Monday because of a power outage, Internet users got a preview of what might happen this summer if blackouts roll through energy-sapped California.

Exodus Communications, which maintains data servers for Yahoo, blamed an underground vault explosion for the outage. The system then failed to roll over to backup generators.

The situation illustrates how California's energy woes could hamper Internet users worldwide. About 20% of the USA's 494 Internet data centers are in California, often on so-called server farms. Virginia ranks second with 46 centers. AOL Hurt

Power woes hurt America Online, too, last month when a data center in Virginia went down briefly because of a power outage. And several Web sites in California have gone off-line this year because of sporadic power outages, industry analysts say.

"This could develop into a major problem when things heat up in the summer," says Christopher Kelley, an analyst at Forrester Research.

That's because California's energy demands climb with demand for air conditioning.

"One or two outages won't scare away online shoppers. But if it happens frequently and for long periods of time, that's when consumers get frustrated and shop elsewhere," Kelley says.

Less Security

The outage at Exodus, one of the leading Web-hosting firms, also undermines the industry's promise of security and reliability, says Ethan Cohen of the Aberdeen Group.

Despite a backup generator, Exodus still suffered an outage. Exodus is investigating what happened in an effort to avoid a repeat, it says.

"That's a black eye for Exodus," says Jarad Carleton, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "Their data centers should never go black. All of the data centers in the state should have been taking a look at their power redundancy to ensure that they were prepared."

Indeed, many data centers have backup generators. Yet many are designed for limited use, and some will falter as rolling blackouts increase, warns Lloyd Taylor, vice president of technology and operations at Keynote Systems, which measures Web site performance.

Farmed Out

"The smart Web developers are farming their traffic to other regions of the country," says Andrew Schroepfer, president of Tier 1 Research. "No one should be too reliant on California or Virginia data centers."

Some Web-hosting firms are diversifying data centers. Metromedia Fiber Network operates three centers in California and 18 others worldwide. One-third of Exodus' 42 data centers are in California.

Still, data centers keep sprouting in California. Plans are moving ahead in San Jose for the world's largest server farm, a $1 billion project that could guzzle the equivalent of energy for 150,000 homes.

The 2.2 million-square-foot facility, overseen by U.S. DataPort, would handle more than 10% of Internet traffic worldwide when it opens in 2002.

© Copyright 2001 USA TODAY i/a/w ScreamingMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2001 NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved. Fair Use for Educational and Research Purposes Only

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), May 10, 2001

Answers

"One or two outages won't scare away online shoppers. But if it happens frequently and for long periods of time, that's when consumers get frustrated and shop elsewhere," Kelley says.

Yeah...like to air conditioned malls when they can't afford to run their own AC.

-- Taz (Tassie123@aol.com), May 10, 2001.


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