Today, if clouds don’t spoil it for us, we’ll get to see a solar eclipse. On a sunny day, an eclipse translates into 40% less electricity from solar panels. Given the shaky state of the electricity supply in Belgium, I do hope you have a backup server room or data center, just in case we should get the long feared electricity blackout after all.

Earlier this week, well before the eclipse, we experienced two power cuts in our data centers, shortly after one another: one in Aalst yesterday, and one at the beginning of the week in Diegem. We have ample backup systems, of course. Our clients never noticed there was a (short) blackout. When data center activities are not your core business however, you can never protect your data and assets in the same way a professional external data center can. So a power cut represents a threat.

Even if you do have a backup solution, a second data center, at a distance of, say, 5 km: how relax can you be about potential disasters such as a power cut? I would keep my mobile close by if I were you. If your server rooms/data centers are only 5 km apart, both are very likely to suffer from any power cut that occurs on the grid. Even if you have the right backup facilities in both your data centers, your staff will have to be in both places at the same time to monitor. A double power cut represents an extra risk, there’s no doubt about that. In practice, your data centers need to be at least 20 km apart to avoid any unnecessary extra risk.

In short: a lot of companies are not as safe as they think they are. A condition for growth is that you can focus on your core business. And that your backend is no source of worry…