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Power company does an oopseyI had lunch with Natasha recently. She is sales manager for an Internet design operation and ISP called Inter-Moose. Don't ask me about the name. These wacky web types, what can you say? Anyway, she told me the story of a recent problem they had, which is illustrative of the need for contingency planning. Seems that our local electric utility was digging a hole for a utility pole behind Inter-Moose's offices. And it also seems that someone was a little off in their measurements about where the T3 line for Inter-Moose was located...by about 3 feet. Inter-Moose went off-line somewhat suddenly. And they stayed off for over 36 hours. Not only did the knuckleheads with the auger tear out their data lines, but Inter-Moose had no regular phone service either. So there was a frantic cell phone and personal visit campaign to let the customers know what the problem was and what they were doing to fix it. The local phone company valiantly tried to fix the damage that their sister utility caused, but after about 12 hours, there was a heavy rainstorm that flooded the hole, causing more delay. And just about the time that the phone company had the work finished, the boobs from the power company showed up with a work order to install a pole in the hole they dug! Duh. From Natasha's description, it sounds like the two representatives from our magnificent, local, legal monopolies almost came to blows, but the power company backed down when reinforcements showed up from the phone company. Looking at the damage to Inter-Moose, we need to point out that we're not talking about a bunch of ma-and-pa home pages disappearing from the Web. Ecommerce sites with millions of dollars in annual revenues were no longer operational. And they disappeared for more than a day. This is not good. Unfortunately, no one at Inter-Moose, or for that matter, the client companies, had ever imagined such a contingency, and they were completely unprepared. They had no mirror sites set up, and they had no alternate method of communicating with their clients (other than cell phones and personal visits). Lessons to be learned: 1. If you're operating Web sites that need to stay up and available all the time, establish alternate mirror sites so that if one is lost, the other location can take over. 2. You might want to investigate whether all of your telephone lines are coming in through one cable, and whether or not you can arrange for spreading out your load over multiple lines. 3. Try to find out the exact location of those lines. And when you see digging going on in your vicinity, batten down the hatches and be ready for trouble. 4. Have an alternate way for your clients to reach your company, whether it is a pager, cell-phone or off-site number. That way, if there is a problem such as the one we've described, your customers can reach you as opposed to waiting for you to reach them. 5. Ask the company who hosts your site about their contingency plans. Natasha is equipping all of her staff with stun guns and baseball bats in case the power company shows up with another pole to install.
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