When a tornado touched down in the seaside city of Revere, Massachusetts, located just five miles north of Boston, residents who were affected by the storm had a hard time believing what had hit them. After all, tornados are exceedingly rare in Massachusetts. But when they finally got outside to see the full extent of the damage, the signs were unmistakable. As the Boston Globe later reported, the tornado cut "a 2-mile long path of destruction" in the city of about 50,000 people.
For those who do not live in parts of the country where tornados are common, it can be easy to forget the sheer power that these storms contain. But the risk—albeit small—still remains, especially for data centers. While homes are insured and can be repaired or rebuilt, tornado damage to a data center destroys more than just the facility itself. It can also cause catastrophic data loss.
Consider the tornado that destroyed much of Joplin, Missouri in 2011. As an article on Information Management reported at the time, the centralized data center at the St. John's Regional Medical Center was left a "total loss," with hospital officials struggling to recover as much information as possible through back up drives.
The best way to protect a data center from a tornado—apart from ensuring that offsite backups of data exist—is to select an appropriate building for data center use or harden an existing facility. This can be achieved by selecting a building constructed out of reinforced concrete, or even building an outer shell that would absorb the wind and debris and protect the main data center within.
Existing facilities can be hardened by removing and sealing exterior windows, if the data center has exterior walls. Small data centers unfortunate enough to have exterior walls in a glass curtain building can be hardened by building a properly designed deck-to-deck wall inside the building's exterior glass curtain.
For those with available space and a small data center, consider placing the data center at the core of the building away from exterior walls. Care should be taken, however, to keep the data center away from incompatible adjoining uses such as bathrooms, kitchenettes or water risers.
Even though tornados are rare in many parts of the country, it is still best to ensure that data center structures are prepared for the worst.
