Japan aftermath: Dangers of cloud disruption: AWS, Equinix
By Carol Ko 22-Mar-2011
On 11 March, an unprecedented earthquake of 9.0-magnitude hit Japan, triggering tsunamis with 10m high waves that devoured lives, buildings, properties and infrastructures along its North Eastern coast, resulting in massive power failure and network disruption.
Compared to its Asian neighbors, Japan has had a high level of cloud computing awareness (with a rating of 6.9 out of 10) and cloud adoption rate (13% on average, 36% at large organizations). Its most bullish cloud users can be found in the telecoms, IT, finance and government sectors, according to Springboard Research.
24/7 network connectivity and uninterrupted service availability are two basic requirements of cloud computing. Given extensive and prolonged power failure and damaged network cables, how badly were cloud service providers in Japan impacted? And what disaster recovery plans have been put in practice to ensure uninterrupted cloud service delivery?
Below is a quick facilities safety check with the major cloud service providers in Japan. Beginning from 14 Mar, Asia Cloud Forum interviewed more than 10 cloud service providers (SPs) with data center operations in Japan (with some declined to comment). Together they help outline the latest state of cloud service delivery in the country.
Where applicable, the performance of these cloud service providers were benchmarked against Compuware's CloudSleuth, a Web-based performance visualizer that measures a cloud SP's response times and availability.
Quick links: Amazon Web Services | Equinix | Google | Microsoft | NTT Com | Salesforce.com | Verizon Business
Amazon Web Services
Ten days before the earthquake, AWS launched its fifth "region" in Tokyo, making it the second data center hub in Asia Pacific (APAC) after Singapore. Since CloudSleuth started to monitor AWS' Tokyo data center performance in the Asia-Oceania region on 10 March, the averaged response times of AWS Tokyo Region have been four seconds faster than its Singapore Region's (See Figure 1 below):
Figure 1. Response times of AWS Tokyo and Singapore Regions between 21 Feb and 22 March 2011
(Source: CloudSleuth; annotations by Asia Cloud Forum staff)
When the Japan earthquake hit, the response time of AWS' Tokyo data centers, as recorded in the city of Tokyo by CloudSleuth, surged from 5.75 seconds on 11 March to 49.47 seconds on 12 March (See Figure 2). The wide fluctuations sustained for six days till 19 March, when the response time dropped to its >6 seconds norm.
Figure 2. Response times of AWS Tokyo Region recorded in Tokyo city between 12 March and 19 March 2011
(Source: CloudSleuth; annotations by Asia Cloud Forum staff)
Regina Tan, spokeswoman of Amazon Web Services, said, "The Amazon Web Services Tokyo Region was not affected by the earthquake or tsunami last week. AWS publishes our most up-to-the-minute information on service availability at our Service Health Dashboard on our website which constantly keeps our customers (and anyone who is interested) up-to-date on AWS' services across our five Regions including the Tokyo Region."
According to the Service Health Dashboard, all of AWS cloud services in the Asia Pacific have been "operating normally" since 11 March. In response to Tokyo Electric's "planned power outages" [a maximum of three hours per day] over the next few weeks, AWS will re-validate its backup power capability so its customers "have the least interruption possible."
Equinix
Last year, data center SP Equinix announced to expand its second IBX data center TY2, and to open the third data center TY3 in 2011 to cater to "strong demand for data center services from cloud and IT service providers, content companies and financial firms doing business in Japan."
An Equinix official statement said the Japan earthquake/tsunami has not brought immediate impact to the Equinix TY1 and TY2 Tokyo IBX centers and services.
| "[W]e have fueled the generators at our Tokyo data centers to their full capacity, which will provide emergency backup power in the event of any power disruption." -- Samuel Lee, president, Equinix Asia Pacific |
"Our two data centers in Tokyo are operating as normal and are running from power from the grid. There is no facility damage or operational impact since the earthquake happened," said Samuel Lee, president of Equinix Asia Pacific.
"Our local operations teams in Japan and our Asia Pacific Network Operations Center have been closely monitoring the situation and will continue to provide services to our customers 24/7."
At present, the Japanese government (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) is prioritizing power and energy supply to data centers that are considered critical information and telecommunication, such as multiple scheduled power shutdowns in the region of Kanto, situated in Eastern Japan.
In response, Equinix has "fueled the generators at our Tokyo data centers to their full capacity, which will provide emergency backup power in the event of any power disruption."
"Given its huge domestic market and readiness to deal with earthquake, we are still confident that Tokyo is a good location for IT/cloud hub for Asia Pacific. It is a matter of how to plan for redundancy and diversity for data centers," Lee said.
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