Fire Alarm at BlueSquare

March 17, 2011

It appears there has been a fire alarm at BlueSquare in Maidenhead which tripped off the electrical supply.

Under normal circumstances the UPS would kick in but it’s understood that three of the UPS’s failed to operate as expected. Generators are now powering the building and the UPS contractors are looking into the problem.

Of course this meant that many servers went offline leaving people without email or a web presence.

It all seems back under control now but the BlueSquare status site seems offline which is somewhat ironic.

Is your server offline, well it’s your own fault.

I’ve visited this data centre on a number of occasions and it’s a secure, state-of-the-art facility. It would be a bit unfair if people complain because the up time on the equipment is very high.

Some hosting providers are already jumping on the Twitter band wagon promoting their services, which is all well and good, but if you want a serious web presence then you need to ensure it covers multiple sites, not just one.

Having redundant and diverse kit spread the risk of failure…although it does increase the cost but that’s the price you have to be prepared to pay.