ATTN: Directspace Customers

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Posted by directspace, 01-07-2010, 09:45 AM
Hi there,

This is a notice that currently there is a MAJOR power outage hitting a major part of the Portland, Oregon area.

Earlier tonight there was a sudden cut over to generators that also caused a reboot to all servers.

Currently The majority of the Pittock block is offline, including backup generators at this time and we're awaiting news as to what's going on.

Currently the only news we have is the following:

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KATUNews PDX Fire may have to shut down power to 25% of downtown for "possibly as long as 8 hours" because of sub station fire in North Portland
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We'll keep this post updated as we can get wireless from different parts of the city.

We really do apologize about this but, well, we don't really have a redundant Portland, Oregon on hand

Thank you for your patience!

Francisco
Posted by dlewis23, 01-07-2010, 10:38 AM
It looks like this was a pretty serious fire http://www.katu.com/news/local/80899527.html

I would like to know why the back up generators you have are not running, isn't this like one of the situations you have them for?
Posted by Katatonic, 01-07-2010, 10:46 AM
Thanks for the update.

What a run of bad luck.
Posted by directspace, 01-07-2010, 11:01 AM
Hey there Donovan,

Actually, at 3:30AM we did cut over to them, that's why all the servers rebooted. Things continued on for a while then all of a sudden there was the full cut off and it seems doing that triggered an issue in the generators that are in the pittock.

We're still waiting more information, for the time being we've hit up a coffee house in another part of town so then we can get online and post updates.

There is a write-up on http://directspace.helpserve.com that contains mine and Edwards number if you're wanting to talk to us at all.

If you have a blackberry, you can send a BBM to either as well.

We'll keep this posted as best we can.

Much thanks,

Francisco
Posted by dlewis23, 01-07-2010, 05:13 PM
Do you guys have any update as to what is going on, or when power will be restored?
Posted by Katatonic, 01-07-2010, 06:11 PM
According to here:http://www.katu.com/news/local/80899527.html

Power has been restored to the city already?
Posted by Hannan, 01-07-2010, 06:52 PM
Guys, any update?
Posted by devonblzx, 01-07-2010, 06:57 PM
According to their support system:

"Power is back on. We are in the process of bringing network back up."

Updated 2:09PST (5:09 EST)
Posted by Hannan, 01-07-2010, 08:04 PM
Servers coming back
Posted by SoutheastWeb, 01-07-2010, 08:21 PM
The pacific northwest is a very beautiful place, especially if the weather is good. I've visited and driven through Portland on multiple occasions. The downtown area of the city is fairly compact in size. This is primarily because of Oregon's urban growth boundary law, which prevented sprawl and over development of land.

Quote:

Fire crews were contemplating shutting down the substation, a move that Portland Fire and Rescue officials said could darken 25 percent of Portland if Pacific Power was not able to re-route the power.

However, Tom Gauntt with Pacific Power disputed the widespread outage warning, saying only about 1,900 customers were affected, mostly downtown and in the Pearl District.

Given the size of downtown, it seems like the representative for Pacific Power is downplaying the significance and severity of the outage. Only 1,900 customers may have been affected by the transformer fire, however the number of actual businesses could be much higher. Good job to Directspace in dealing with this outage, nothing is worse than having no control over the situation. Transformer fires are a great cause for concern in this industry. They listed the cause as accidental, let's just hope this was not another rogue squirrel on the loose.
Posted by Katatonic, 01-08-2010, 02:34 AM
10 hours outage in total here - this makes sense and it was as DirectSpace described.

I would like to know more about their generator setup / UPS - if this is independent (and theirs) or they are sharing. UPS should provide enough time for the generators to run at least 12 hours - this covers most emergencies.

We are back up online now and they do have some improving to do - but as far as the outage goes - fair enough.