No Impact to Data Center Customers During Hurricane Michelle

November 9, 2001
Author: Maxil COmmunications

While Hurricane Michelle was pounding Nassau, Bahamas this past Monday, customers of Maxil's Data Center remained high, dry and secure.

The hurricane passed directly over Maxil's Nassau-based data center (a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable Bahamas Ltd.), with wind speeds of over 103 mph and driving rain. Detailed checks made during and after the storm showed that all systems inside the building remained dry and customers systems continued to operate normally throughout the storm. Mike Kelly, manager of the facility credits this to the superior workmanship that went into the building. "Every chink and nook was sealed off and weatherproofed during construction. The facility was built with one of the most secure construction techniques I've ever seen," he said.

Data center staff monitored computer and support systems throughout the storm, looking for any problems outside the building that could affect customers. Fiber connections from the center, through Caribbean Crossings high-speed link to the North American continent operated perfectly.

Michael Atkin, VP of Maxil Communications explains how the data center customers remained unaffected by Michelle. "We designed this building and its systems to sustain a major hurricane hit. The walls are watertight which is important because high-speed hurricane rains can drive water horizontally through walls. Any crack can let in water, so we made sure it was well sealed. The roof is actually bolted on through the entire height of the wall, with rebar set into poured concrete." "Our power generating facility is fully enclosed and allowed us operate our generator in the hours leading up the storm as well as afterwards. This helped to provide our customers with 100% reliable power".

"Our high-speed fiber connection from the Bahamas to the backbone of the Internet is buried underground and encased in aluminum armoring and steel sheathing. From the Island to the Continent it's buried up to several thousand feet underwater - safe from any disturbances on the surface."

In short, Maxil Communications non stop computing environment worked exactly as designed and provided customers with the secure, high availability computing environment they need and confirming again why the Bahamas is quickly becoming the Americas number one offshore computing environment.

Maxil Communications Ltd. established in December 2000 is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable Bahamas Ltd. Maxil currently operates a 3,600 square foot data center out of Nassau, offering co-location facilities with high-speed connectivity into the backbone of the North American Internet and telecommunications network.