May 2004 Newsletter

Redundancy, Redundancy

By: Eric Wahter, Network Support Specialist, Partner

On April 5th, the joint US-Canadian task force investigating last summer's Northeast blackout issued its final report . Without going into details, the report indicated that the same conditions are still in place such that another major blackout could occur again at any time. With this potential disaster hanging over our heads, Quadax is completing a project to provide its own backup power to our Cleveland Data Center.

We are currently installing a Caterpillar^® 3306 backup generator. Rated at 300 KVA, this unit will provide emergency power to our entire building within 10 seconds of a power outage. This system should be fully operational by the middle of May. We've also installed a new, larger UPS system in the computer room to maintain power to all critical computer and communications systems during the brief period between loss of public power and our generator's startup.

These two components will assure continuity of service for our clients even during a prolonged power outage. Since we will be generating power for our entire facility, not only will our business applications remain available, but our patient call center and client support staffs will remain operational.

We're also upgrading our Data Center's Halon^® fire suppression system. This routine change is necessary to protect the increasing amount of computer hardware we continue to place in service.

Many thanks to Don Langsdale of our staff for his tireless efforts and long hours devoted to the completion of these projects.

A couple other notes: Our fiber optic SONET connection for all our data and voice lines has functioned flawlessly since it was turned up several months ago. And, speaking of reliability, Quadax will soon be switching Internet service providers. We have contracted with SBC to provide multiple T1 connections to the Internet. This switch will provide increased bandwidth and eliminate a couple of the availability problems we experienced with our previous provider.

We will be issuing a statement at a future date as to when the Internet cut-over is to occur so as to minimize any inconveniences to our clients.