Japan aftermath: AWS, Equinix

On March 11, an unprecedented earthquake of 9.0-magnitude hit Japan, triggering tsunamis with 10 meter high waves that devoured lives, buildings, properties and infrastructures along its North Eastern coast, resulting in massive power failure and network disruption.

 

Compared to its Asian neighbors, Japan has had a high level of cloud computing awareness (with a rating of 6.9 out of 10) and cloud adoption rate (13% on average, 36% at large organizations). Its most bullish cloud users can be found in the telecoms, IT, finance and government sectors, according to Springboard Research.

 

24/7 network connectivity and uninterrupted service availability are two basic requirements of cloud computing. Given extensive and prolonged power failure and damaged network cables, how badly were cloud service providers in Japan impacted? And what disaster recovery plans have been put in practice to ensure uninterrupted cloud service delivery?

 

Below is a quick facilities safety check with the major cloud service providers in Japan. Beginning from March 14, Asia Cloud Forum interviewed more than 10 cloud service providers with data center operations in Japan (some declined to comment). Together they help outline the latest state of cloud service delivery in the country.

 

Where applicable, the performance of these cloud service providers were benchmarked against Compuware's CloudSleuth, a Web-based performance visualizer that measures a cloud SP's response times and availability.