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Water Main Break Floods Dallas Data Center


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IT systems in Dallas County in Texas were offline for more than three days last week after a water main break flooded the basement of the Dallas County Records Building, which houses the UPS systems and other electrical equipment supporting the data center on the fifth floor of the building. The county does not have a backup data center, despite warnings that it faced the risk of service disruption without one.

The 90-year-old water main ruptured at about 10:30 p.m. last Monday (May 31), flooding the basement-level mechanical room with six feet of water, forcing the shutdown of the data center. Power was not restored to the facility until early Friday.

"The county's criminal justice system nearly ground to a halt, as paper processing from another era led to lengthy delays," the Dallas News reported. The county had been warned in a 2008 consultant's report that it needed to address its lack of a backup data center, but never followed through on the recommendation. The Texas county said it believes no critical data was lost in last week's flooding.

From Data Center Knowledge
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