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San Francisco earthquake

bhambham Registered Users Posts: 1,303 Major grins
edited April 14, 2008 in SmugMug Support
After watching a expert on the news this morning predict that a major quake hits the San Fran area every 140 years (and the 140th Anniv. of the 1868 quake is this coming fall), it got me wondering what is smugmugs plan if a major quake hits.

I realize the redundancy of photos being stored at multiple data centers in many locations. But I always got the impression that the database and main site info, etc is there in the bay area. Is the database, site info, etc redundant as well?

Just wondering if I need a backup plan if my site is down for a month.
"A photo is like a hamburger. You can get one from McDonalds for $1, one from Chili's for $5, or one from Ruth's Chris for $15. You usually get what you pay for, but don't expect a Ruth's Chris burger at a McDonalds price, if you want that, go cook it yourself." - me

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    bhambham Registered Users Posts: 1,303 Major grins
    edited April 14, 2008
    bump

    84 views and no responses??
    "A photo is like a hamburger. You can get one from McDonalds for $1, one from Chili's for $5, or one from Ruth's Chris for $15. You usually get what you pay for, but don't expect a Ruth's Chris burger at a McDonalds price, if you want that, go cook it yourself." - me
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    SheafSheaf Registered Users, SmugMug Product Team Posts: 775 SmugMug Employee
    edited April 14, 2008
    bham wrote:
    After watching a expert on the news this morning predict that a major quake hits the San Fran area every 140 years (and the 140th Anniv. of the 1868 quake is this coming fall), it got me wondering what is smugmugs plan if a major quake hits.

    I realize the redundancy of photos being stored at multiple data centers in many locations. But I always got the impression that the database and main site info, etc is there in the bay area. Is the database, site info, etc redundant as well?

    Just wondering if I need a backup plan if my site is down for a month.

    I personally don't know all the details. I will see about getting someone to post here who does. But I can tell you this:

    1 - Data centers are built specifically to withstand natural disasters
    2 - Despite that, data centers do occasionally experience outages related to natural disasters as well as other problems
    3 - We do our best to not put all of our eggs in one basket

    Fun fact: Our President and co-founder Chris (Baldy), has a Master's degree in Geophysics from Stanford and has done quite a bit of research into earthquakes (and even helped create an award-winning documentary on the subject).
    SmugMug Product Manager
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    bhambham Registered Users Posts: 1,303 Major grins
    edited April 14, 2008
    Sheaf wrote:
    I personally don't know all the details. I will see about getting someone to post here who does. But I can tell you this:

    1 - Data centers are built specifically to withstand natural disasters
    2 - Despite that, data centers do occasionally experience outages related to natural disasters as well as other problems
    3 - We do our best to not put all of our eggs in one basket

    Fun fact: Our President and co-founder Chris (Baldy), has a Master's degree in Geophysics from Stanford and has done quite a bit of research into earthquakes (and even helped create an award-winning documentary on the subject).

    Thanks, I didn't realize that data centers were built that way. Reassuring to know. I knew about the redundancy for the photos and I guess I was just want some reassuring so that when the next Big One hits, us smugmuggers wouldn't be down for months.

    Yeah that news report on a big quake in California kinda got me thinking. I hope ya'll are ready.
    "A photo is like a hamburger. You can get one from McDonalds for $1, one from Chili's for $5, or one from Ruth's Chris for $15. You usually get what you pay for, but don't expect a Ruth's Chris burger at a McDonalds price, if you want that, go cook it yourself." - me
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    SheafSheaf Registered Users, SmugMug Product Team Posts: 775 SmugMug Employee
    edited April 14, 2008
    bham wrote:
    Thanks, I didn't realize that data centers were built that way. Reassuring to know. I knew about the redundancy for the photos and I guess I was just want some reassuring so that when the next Big One hits, us smugmuggers wouldn't be down for months.

    Yeah that news report on a big quake in California kinda got me thinking. I hope ya'll are ready.

    We all wear many hats around here and one I occasionally wear is to help install new machines in some of our datacenters. Aside from the structural integrity of the buildings, each new machine is screwed in securely to a rack that is bolted very securely to the floor.

    So if an earthquake actually does damage our servers, it's not simply a matter of loose machines falling off a shelf. You can see an old video of one of our datacenters here: http://www.news.com/1606-2_3-6110331.html?tag=ne.video.6109789
    SmugMug Product Manager
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