• Howdy! Welcome to our community of more than 130.000 members devoted to web hosting. This is a great place to get special offers from web hosts and post your own requests or ads. To start posting sign up here. Cheers! /Peo, FreeWebSpace.net
managed wordpress hosting

Explosion at THE PLANET

Hey,

Sorry if I repeat things here, but I contacted their PR department and got a few answers!

My questions are in normal font and the answers are in bold!

Approximately how many clients & servers are currently affected?

In Phase 1 of our H1 data center that are 3000 servers and 2600 customers affected; in Phase 2 there are 4900 customers and 6000 servers; for a total of 9000 servers and 7500 customers. H1 is one of six world-class data centers we have in Dallas and Houston.

When are you expected to return as normal?

We are running the data center on five generators; we expect utility power to return next Saturday, July 14, when we plan to do the cutover back to utility power. There are a few random issues as you would expect. I am happy to report that we have less than 50 problem tickets on these 9000 left to manage for our customers.

Can you confirm rumors of FBI involvement?

Jason, the FBI had nothing to do with this. If the FBI wanted to be in our data center, they simply show up at the door and security checkpoints and present a badge. They don’t create electrical fires. That was about the most outlandish rumor I’ve heard. Well … I take that back … there were a few others that were equally absurb.

Finally, can I get a few comments from your staff?

This has been a difficult situation for our customers, and our team has performed brilliantly to get power and the network restored. We have communicated endlessly to customers to keep them apprised of the situation. We are a very customer-focused company, and it showed. Our team has gone above and beyond to do everything possible for customers. Our terms of service in a situation like this require us to provide one-month of service free; we are in fact giving customers in Phase 1 of the data center!

We’ve had letter from customers who have congratulated us on the fine job we’ve done. In fact, a customer in London called me today to say thanks for all the work. His company is one of our largest customers, and here are some of the things he said: “your staff is great; the service during this disaster was incredibly impressive; the response times were brilliant; all the information and communication was excellent; I have no complaints at all.”

All appears to be going well!

Regards
 
Last edited:
Hi!
Dynash...read my post, please. Where I am blaming ThePlanet for following the fire department orders???? Nowhere..not even mentioned.

Fact is I have dealt with Theplanet on a couple of occasions on a few client's behalf..and I made my decision on personal first-hand experience. This incident (like so many others) reinforced that decision. Oh..48 hours? many people were down for almost a week!

Can you afford for *your* server(s) to be down for almost an entire week?

Uh-huh.

Next.

Bryon
 
Can you afford for *your* server(s) to be down for almost an entire week?
Click to expand...

In comparison to UKEasily, they have been a god send.
You can't blame them for the way generators work ;)
@Jason, thanks for that post:D
 
Hi!
Sigh. I'm going to try this one more time.

>>"You can't blame them for the way generators work"

Uhhh...what does that have to do with the price of Pizza in Italy???

Let me tell you a little secret. Transformers don't just decide one day to blow up...it is a gradual thing. I tell you another thing...there is an extremely good reason why they are normally located outside...and not inside buildings..they need to keep cool.

Put on in a poorly-vented room..presto! You have a recipe for lots of problems.

Period. Fact.

I believe it could have been prevented. They didn't. And that's all I have to say about it.

Bryon
 
bryonhost1 said:
Hi!
Sigh. I'm going to try this one more time.

>>"You can't blame them for the way generators work"

Uhhh...what does that have to do with the price of Pizza in Italy???

Let me tell you a little secret. Transformers don't just decide one day to blow up...it is a gradual thing. I tell you another thing...there is an extremely good reason why they are normally located outside...and not inside buildings..they need to keep cool.

Put on in a poorly-vented room..presto! You have a recipe for lots of problems.

Period. Fact.

I believe it could have been prevented. They didn't. And that's all I have to say about it.

Bryon
Click to expand...

Bryon, no offence but ThePlanet people know a lot more than you think and are leading professionals in their field. For you to presume that they didn't consider ventilation is kind of very dumb. Stop making presumptions.
 
bryonhost1 said:
Let me tell you a little secret. Transformers don't just decide one day to blow up...it is a gradual thing. I tell you another thing...there is an extremely good reason why they are normally located outside...and not inside buildings..they need to keep cool.

Put on in a poorly-vented room..presto! You have a recipe for lots of problems.
Click to expand...

Er, yes they can, 'decay' in electrical supply equipment can be anything from microseconds to thousands of years, Physics 101.

Should the transformers have been poorly situated/maintained and without the correct environmental conditions the supply would have become gradually dirtier and many equipment issues would have arisen, to the point where servers would have fallen over wholesale - before the things blew up.

Study electrical power engineering (HVAC to start with) before making sweeping comments that just make you look silly :)
 
bryonhost1 said:
Hi!
I have and do study electrical engineering. So there. I even used to belong to IEEE.
Click to expand...

Used to :confused4 , I do and it's not something you just stop!

Smashing study, current to 1997 by an insurance company funded research project. Nice picture of an old substation distribution transformer though :)

This one killed me -
The transformer windings, bushings, and arresters should have a Power Factor test on a three-year basis.
Click to expand...
- er no, a 1 year basis (2 max) to align along with regular 5 year full system tests (and shutdown). But that's in the UK, I'd insist on that (as I have done), USA will probably have their own regs for it so that probably doesn't happen.

As I said though HVAC engineering is a field of it's own, not in anyway a general electrical engineering field.

Constants of oil fluid coolents is another but where do you stop?

The folks looking after this kit are more than aware of the effects of not doing their job - the best example is being in the area when one goes, outcome power down and your dead!


Edit for last post before I replied - so the inbetween one :)

I don't research it I do it.

Get yer wellies on and your 5kv tool kit out and reply, theory only is a wonderfull and very comfortable world. Try working in it!
 
Last edited:
Hi!
Still...even if you know everything there is to know about transformers..you must admit that is a very rare occurance for most NOC's. In fact..I am only aware of one other in 2004 on the other board:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=356563

This article does not mention it..but hivelocity had downtime due to this.

If what you say is true...a fact..transformers suddenly exploding would happen more often. This is simply not the case. Still...I've wasted too much time on this already.

Bryon
 
An interview with Joe Vennix of the Host Gator live support team!

Q: Have the 186 affected clients been co-operating?
A: Pretty much. There was no data loss or anything, only a bit of
downtime. Most were understanding once they heard what really happened.

Q: How have you been updating your clients?
A: We post updates on the forum. The clients that were affected all owned
dedicated servers, so they mostly knew the drill.

Q: Are all of your clients now back up an running, if so, did you have to
move them do a different Planet noc?
A: Yep, everything is working again. We're still using the same Planet noc.

The Planet PR department then granted me contact with the CEO of Pro Boards, Martyn Dale, who had the following to say:

I personally think they did an amazing job considering what happened.
Despite the near total destruction of the electrical room, they managed to
get power back to the facility in just over a day. The only people who can
find fault in that would be those who don't understand the magnitude of the
incident. The staff did a really good job dealing with a situation which can
be described no less than a disaster, with many going well over 24 hours
without sleep in an effort to get things back as quick as possible. Totally
unpredictable incidents can happen in any industry and its a testament to
The Planet's customer service that they managed to not only get the Data
Center powered again in a short time-frame, but also gave alternatives, such
as having servers driven to another location to be brought online there.
At this point in time we have 116 servers, though some of those we had
quickly set up by TP on Saturday in another DC so we could still serve
traffic during the outage.

Prior to that we had 92 servers spread over H1 and H2. The new 24 are
located in D6.

24 machines were in H1 and affected by the outage, and 5 of those 24 were in
phase 1, which as im sure you already know was the part of H1 which had a
longer downtime.
 
Last edited:
Sorry to jump over yours Jason :)

bryonhost1 said:
Hi!
Still...even if you know everything there is to know about transformers..you must admit that is a very rare occurance for most NOC's. In fact..I am only aware of one other in 2004 on the other board:

If what you say is true...a fact..transformers suddenly exploding would happen more often.
Click to expand...

1. I do not preclaim to know anything about anything.
2. Your arguements/facts are all supposition/theory.
3. I've met people like you and tey tend to be shunned in social groups.

So to make it simple;

Still...even if you know everything there is to know about transformers..you must admit that is a very rare occurance for most NOC's.
Click to expand...

Where did that come? I did not and never will make such a stupid comment to require such a stupid response.
Yes it is a rare occurence, proven by your own next statement.

In fact..I am only aware of one other in 2004 on the other board
Click to expand...

Hmm, 4 years, worldwide, rare... Yep fits the bill for rare.

If what you say is true...a fact..transformers suddenly exploding would happen more often.[/
Click to expand...

What qualifications did you say you had again? To make that supposition from the facts means you are either unstable or planning somethng to do with exploding something and looking for a traceability of proof to secure your release from custody after the fact.

Bryon I'm now out of this one as it's not even amusing, you remind me of another that came along (anyone remember Mek?)
 
Hey, not a problem mate! I think I've dug quite far here and I have the PR contacts with The Planet, Host Gator and some of The Planet clients. I'm happy, I'm glad I could help in a way :D <<snipped>>
 
JasonS
Hey, not a problem mate! I think I've dug quite far here and I have the PR contacts with The Planet, Host Gator and some of The Planet clients. I'm happy, I'm glad I could help in a way
Click to expand...

umm Jason, Your PR contacts arent that special :p, I could of just emailed Brandi, the HR Director and she would of told me the same thing, Which reminds me, I have a phone interview with her later for a job at HostGator, She emailed a job offer and I accepted! WOOT!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top