Another interesting story from China Tech News: the opening of Asia’s largest high availability data center in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Chengdu is quickly becoming the premier inland China technology center. The Chinese government instituted a “Go West” policy in 2000 to encourage development beyond the eastern seaboard. Mixed in with the carpetbaggers, students, and manufacturers have been a lot of international software firms. Between the tax breaks and an indifference to transport infrastructure they have gone in droves.

Two of those firms, Microsoft and HP, have invested RMB800 million with GDS China to develop what will be (sometime in early 2009) the biggest high availability (HA) data center in Asia. My guess is that Microsoft will supply the software and HP the servers. According to the article:

The High Availability Data Center will include a disaster preparation center, data processing for enterprises and personal information arrangement services. It is designed to serve banking, securities, insurance and government institutions.

It’s a good business opportunity. As companies in China become more sophisticated in their use of IT, they will need services like this to protect their technology investments.

Roughly put a high availability data center should:

Have extended backup power capability in case of power black outs or brown outs
Multiple communications links to multiple providers for redundant
In house data backup and replication and off site storage
Provide (depending on the contract) on-premises hardware and software for clients within 24 hours
Provide (depending on the contract) on-premises functional applications
Provide protection against everything except “acts of god”

This is where things start to get tricky out in Chengdu. “Acts of god” is a legal catch phrase for fires, storms, floods, etc. that are beyond human control. When you go west in China, there are a lot of acts of gods, a lot of things that are beyond human control.

This summer China experienced horrible flooding. The International Red Cross described at as some of the worst flooding in ten years. Western Sichuan had some of the worst. The image is taken from the Red Cross’ China flooding map. Chengdu is in the middle of the largest affected area. Chengdu itself was mercifully only drenched and not drowned.

Western Sichuan is also one of China’s more earthquake-prone areas. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has a map showing natural disaster risk in China. Chengdu is right on the edge for degree seven earthquakes on the modified Mercalli scale. The US government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) describes the effects:

People have difficulty standing. Drivers feel their cars shaking. Some furniture breaks. Loose bricks fall from buildings. Damage is slight to moderate in well-built buildings; considerable in poorly built buildings.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) gives Chengdu a rating of 6 out of 10 for earthquake risk. Beijing and Wuhan are rated at 7, while Shanghai comes in at 2.

I would assume that the folks at GDS will build a facility to withstand both threats. They will connect the facility to sister sites in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, providing site recovery to other zones that would not be affected by the same act of god.

That’s all well and good, but for companies investing in China’s west they need to understand the risk and plan (and insure) accordingly.

Further Reading
A list of earthquakes in China can be found here

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