Japan earthquake puts data centers and cloud services at risk

Japan was reeling after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the Northeast coast. The disaster comes as many tech giants were setting up data centers in Tokyo to meet demand for cloud computing services. There are reports of some interruptions of telecommunications services. In fact, TV reports indicate that mobile services are up in Tokyo, but spotty. Indeed, in an IBM data center in Tokyo containing a variety of IBM servers, machines fell horizontally to the data center floor, stretching cables, but some servers kept running (previous picture).

Whereas ESRI currently investigate the earthquake probability in Tokyo, big datacenters are located near this city, as Amazon Web Services. SalesForce.com also add a datacenter in Tokyo. After the last Earthquake, WinRumors report that “Microsoft temporarily switched to U.S. data centers”.

Nearly 1,000 Japanese companies use technology from WorkSafe Technologies to protect their equipment. Products from these technologies allow racks and cabinets to ride out even major quakes with minimal vibrations. It’s a seismic isolation system which allows full racks of serves to shift by as much as eight inches without damage. The key question in that quake is whether the magnitude caused movement that exceeded that threshhold (find here the Earthquake Details).

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