SECURING YOUR DATA BEYOND THE “CLOUD”

Whether you are uploading photos to SkyDrive, using Google Docs to “create and share your work online and access your documents from anywhere,” posting your calendar on Google Calendar, using Gmail, using iCloud to transfer content between your iOS devices or between those devices and your Mac, or using Carbonite to back up your computer, those documents, photos and other content are residing in the “cloud.” However, the cloud is not some ephemeral, amorphous place but rather, as the Carbonite web site assures its customers, a highly secure data center. Carbonite goes on to assure that its data center is temperature controlled, has an uninterruptable power supply, includes on-site emergency backup generators with guaranteed fuel contracts and enjoys tightly restricted personnel access with guards on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

To provide an uninterruptable power supply, data centers rely on banks of diesel generators that emit exhaust, worldwide they use about 30 billion watts of electricity, equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants; according to the New York Times, “At least a dozen major data centers have been cited for violations of air quality regulations in Virginia and Illinois alone, according to state records. Amazon was cited with more than 24 violations over a three-year period in Northern Virginia, including running some of its generators without a basic environmental permit.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-of-energy-belying-industry-image.html?smid=pl-share But this story isn’t about the environmental impact of data centers; it’s about what your data, stored in a data center, is not protected against. It is about what happens when a superstorm, like Hurricane Sandy, strikes or a tornado just happens to touch down on the location of your data center. In the case of Hurricane Sandy, as of today, over 100,000 people are still without power two weeks later and gas rationing has been instituted. So maybe you shouldn’t put your data center in New York City; well, Google’s largest office and engineering center in the US outside of its Mountain View headquarters is in lower Manhattan and a building, built in 1929, that served as the hub for Western Union’s telegraph network, is a 943,000 square foot major hub for telecom connection in Manhattan, and the aforementioned New York Times article noted that Amazon has at least eight major data centers in Northern Virginia.

Now, common sense would seem to tell you that, after 9-11, the two places that you wouldn’t want to locate your most important data would be in the Washington D.C. area or in lower Manhattan…in fact the National Security Agency, which is headquartered just outside Washington, is planning to build its data center in Utah and the largest data center, including some 1.1 million square feet, is located about a mile South of my offices in the building that formerly printed the Sears’ catalog.  Grid power there is supported by more than 50 generators throughout the building, which are fueled by multiple 30,000 gallon tanks of diesel fuel and it uses more than 100 megawatts of electricity. Locating a data center in Chicago has some advantages; we don’t have hurricanes and the nearest major seismic zone is the New Madrid fault which is over 400 miles away. In the future, however, your data may be in Iceland. Data centers need a temperature range of 16–24 °C (61–75 °F) and humidity range of 40–55%  and what, as I noted above, is a lot of electricity. Well, except for the occasional volcano, Iceland has 100% renewable energy, and as it’s “Iceland,” cooling the servers involved is readily easy to do; no air conditioning isrequired. While, it is far away, making data latency a problem, a $300,000,000 undersea cable from New York to Iceland is scheduled to be completed within the next two years. BMW is already planning to move such computer intensive applications as CAD and engineering, as well as crash simulations, to Iceland’s new $700,000,000 data center.

But, there’s another place to store your computer’s data, e.g., your photos, music, calendar, important documents. For $100.00 you can buy a one terabyte portable external hard drive. And as long as you remember to back up that data on that hard drive, you don’t have to worry about hurricanes, tornados or power outages, unless they happen at your location. And if they do, there’s always the cloud. In other words, the lesson of Hurricane Sandy should be, don’t depend on the cloud-back-up your data onto your own hard drive and, just remember, if a wildfire or storm surge comes knocking at your door, don’t just grab the family photo album, grab that hard drive….actually nowadays, the family photo album is probably on that hard drive. You never know where the “cloud” actually is….it may turn out to be as ephemeral as a real cloud. Hard drive in hand; it will likely survive if you do and, if you don’t, you won’t really care, anyhow. Besides, redundancy never hurt anyone; it got us to the moon and back safely. Just ask Jim Lovell.

But this story isn’t about the environmental impact of data centers; it’s about what your data, stored in a data center, is not protected against. It is about what happens when a superstorm, like Hurricane Sandy, strikes or a tornado just happens to touch down on the location of your data center. In the case of Hurricane Sandy, as of today, over 100,000 people are still without power two weeks later and gas rationing has been instituted. So maybe you shouldn’t put your data center in New York City; well, Google’s largest office and engineering center in the US outside of its Mountain View headquarters is in lower Manhattan and a building, built in 1929, that served as the hub for Western Union’s telegraph network, is a 943,000 square foot major hub for telecom connection in Manhattan, and the aforementioned New York Times article noted that Amazon has at least eight major data centers in Northern Virginia.

About ERIC WACHSPRESS

The material on this website is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal advice and is not intended to create an attorney-client relationship. If you have questions regarding any material presented herein, we recommend that you consult an attorney. This web site and information presented herein were designed in accordance with Illinois law. Any content in conflict with the laws or ethical code of attorney conduct of any other jurisdiction is unintentional and void. I am a Chicago attorney practicing in the areas of trademark, copyright and information technology law as well as general corporate law. Formerly a trademark examining attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, I have been in private practice since 1987 representing clients in a wide variety of industries, including the consumer products, financial services, information technology and entertainment industries. You can contact me at markscounsel@gmail.com, by phone at 773.934.5855 or by mail at 417 S. Jefferson St., #304, Chicago, IL 60607 USA
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