Jun 16, 2008 : Facility Stays Online Through Flood

📅 June 16, 2008 - Data center operator Involta (involta.com) and its 20 employees have managed to keep their facility operational in the Armstrong and Granby buildings despite floodwaters rising around them in the streets of downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as reported by The Gazette.


Rob Smith, Involta chief marketing officer, told The Gazette that the data center, which serves about 20 customers, had to fall back on a number of portable generators after its main power shutdown on Friday.

The data center employees received a lot of cooperation from Cedar Rapids police and National Guard, and managed to maintain essential network services and never leave the facility, said Smith.

Employees managed to keep both the switch gear in the basement of the Granby Building and the network equipment in the basement of the Armstrong building operational.

"We kept the electrical switch gear up and running until the water reached 27 feet," said Smith. "When we realized it was going to go higher, we brought in a generator from Peoria on Thursday morning that's about the size of a semi truck. Unfortunately by that time, the water was higher than the switch connection points on the building."

Smith said Involta employees switched to eight small generators, causing the facility to lose power to the core network for approximately 20 minutes while it made the necessary connections. Facility employees would run five-gallon cans of gasoline through the building to maintain operation of the generators. The facility also switched some customers to other partner data centers as well as moved ImOn Communication's email server into space it still leases at AEGON Financial Park.

Smith credits Dynamic Broadband as being a "tremendous help" to the company during the whole crisis. He adds that Involta is offering computer network connections, work space, computers and phone lines at Hawkeye Community College, Des Moines Area Community College and other locations.

Involta says it hopes to turn back the large backup generator in the alley of the Armstrong/Granby buildings as early as Sunday.

In related news, Web hosting provider Go Daddy announced today is helping to support victims of the Iowa flooding with a $100,000 donation to the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Salvation Army.