PG&E Planned Power Outage in Sacramento

[Pixiehawk]

Looking at the map the outages go around Sacramento. I'm not sure where the servers are, but if they are actually in Sac we'll be fine.

[MariaArvana]

But again, running the servers is moot if the surrounding areas are without power. Which is what I was getting at. If an internet exchange point is down because of the outage it could affect multiple users.

"I can only speak for the general region I work at, but every single datacenter & node across the entire province are equipped with backup power reserves in the event of a large scale power outage. Literally everything else could go down but networking access would be uninterrupted. Every minute of downtime costs thousands of dollars lost in profit, so my datacenter has three separate backup power systems installed in case even one of the Redundant systems fails." - my BF.

Could be different for Cali, but considering that's smack dab in the middle of silicone/tech valley, I wouldn't be surprised if the apocalypse could happen and networking would be uninterrupted there. Not to mention for the game to be unconnectable, literally every single route into Sacremento would have to be shutdown, something that even if a few nodes fail, is something insanely unlikely. As long as one active route to sacremento exists, connection will be possible, just maybe slightly higher ping.

EDIT: also from the article Hyomin linked - "The planned shutoff appears to spare most of Silicon Valley’s big tech operations."

[arctic]

Reading up on the news about this, and it seems like the power outage is happening due to the windy, dry weather in the area—and PG&E is wanting to try and prevent wildfires. Apparently their equipment was responsible for one two years ago, and then another a year ago. So, I don’t really think even diesel generators would be an option if this is their intent.

https://www.google.co.jp/amp/s/finan...195030991.html

Last year's fire in Paradise, whole town and surrounding areas were lost. Which PG&E quickly followed up with declaring bankruptcy and is now showing sensitivity of the matter with these fire preventative blackouts.

[HyoMinPark]

Last year's fire in Paradise, whole town and surrounding areas were lost. Which PG&E quickly followed up with declaring bankruptcy and is now showing sensitivity of the matter with these fire preventative blackouts.

Which is all well and good. I applaud them for wanting to prevent wildfires. But there’s no real information about if this will affect the game or not—and I’d wager if it was going to, the community managers for NA would probably mention something. Since there hasn’t been any mention of the game or the servers being affected, I’m just assuming they won’t be. But I guess we’ll know in ~12 hours or so.

[arctic]

You were saying?

If you don't think diesel can power up computers, how do you think cruise ships propel themselves?

Okay, there are some very impressive diesel generators. You were right. There is a very good possibility that the game will run uninterrupted. My concerns if the outage will affect the servers have been addressed and nothing bad will happen.

[Arthrun]

I do not work for Square but the company I do work for has generators for our data center that can last up to 5 days,(quick random question to my boss says we can last upto 10 days because of or second generators I had completely forgotten about). Any company that has a data center would have something similar I would not be worried. Also being from Sacramento this only effects certain areas as you get closer to Roseville, Lincoln and placer county. SMUD handles most of Sacramento's power supply. PG&E is mostly for natural Gas in our area. Once you start entering areas like Napa, Solano, El Dorado counties then PG&E becomes more involved with electricity.


Long story short. I will be very surprised if anything other than personal internet for residential would be effected.

[Arrhin]

I think a server farm would require more energy than diesel generators could reasonably supply. And yeah Air quality stuff. But again, running the servers is moot if the surrounding areas are without power. Which is what I was getting at. If an internet exchange point is down because of the outage it could affect multiple users.

Imagine a diesel generator with over 3000 BHP. And thats not even a big one yet...

[Arthrun]

Imagine a diesel generator with over 3000 BHP. And thats not even a big one yet...

I had to google that..... so I do not think stating what a generator to have over 3000 BHP would mean anything to anyone here. Even I still do not understand after reading a bit about it with it relating to generating power. all i can decern is that you are referencing 3000 horse power engine to generate kilo watts.

[Shori]

Sorry to be the buzzkill to the generator thing but... whats the use in powering a data centre if theres no power beyond it? Cant reach the web if the surrounding exchanges are powered down.

Well if it does affect the data centre hopefully it wont be for too long

[Caitlinzulu]

I used to work at a power plant a long time ago and at the time we had 3 diesel/heavy fuel generators generating 5 megawatt each (if I remember correctly) doubt a datacenter would need that much. So it's definitely possible.
Only issue perhaps is the size of them and the noise they make.