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Newsflash

Taiwan earthquake damages undersea Internet cables

A major earthquake and several aftershocks in Taiwan, which injured dozens of people and caused several fires on Thursday, also sent Chunghwa Telecom workers scrambling to fix undersea fiber-optic telecommunications cables to prevent service disruptions around Asia.

Taiwan's biggest telecommunications company said the initial 6.4-magnitude earthquake, which struck near the southern Taiwan city of Pingtung, damaged four undersea cables in six different places, knocking out service for parts of the day Thursday and early Friday. Global communications and Internet service on all networks has already been restored, mainly by rerouting service on undamaged cables.

Guidelines for Planning a Data Center

Written by Julianus Yu

Following is a list of the key guidelines for design, construction, and deployment of a data center:

Plan in advance —The sooner you start planning, the quicker you will discover potential problems and have time to think of and implement solutions.

Plan for the worst—At least you will have thought of solutions to any impending problems.

Plan for growth —The data center most probably will be in use longer than originally planned. Relocation is cumbersome and companies do not relocate unless absolutely necessary.

Simplify your design —If it is complicated, changes will take more time and money and cause financial losses and emotional upheaval.

Plan for changes —Design must be modular and flexible to accommodate changes and growth.

Label all equipment, especially cables and ports —Maintenance and adding servers or devices will take less time. More importantly, they will be less likely to create unwarranted problems.