Is Tokyo Earthquake safe?

Hi Guys,

So, I'm considering to migrate from Fremont DC to Tokyo, as it is closer to me.

But what about Earthquake safety? Where does DC literally located in Tokyo?

13 Replies

I believe japan has being dealing with earthquakes for many years and all the buildings in japan, including the DCs are built with earthquakes in mind. That's not to say you shouldn't have an off site backup :P

At a guess, linode is in the FUCHU data centre for KDDI.

http://www.telehouseglobal.com/globallo … japan.html">http://www.telehouseglobal.com/globallocations/japan.html

"The TELEHOUSE building is earthquake-resistant and built on firm ground"

@praetorian:

At a guess, linode is in the FUCHU data centre for KDDI.

http://www.telehouseglobal.com/globallo … japan.html">http://www.telehouseglobal.com/globallocations/japan.html

"The TELEHOUSE building is earthquake-resistant and built on firm ground"

Interesting, do they have some kind of availability rating?

I mean, what forecast do we have: will Tokyo be more stable than Foremont with its power outage?

@TheClient:

Interesting, do they have some kind of availability rating?

I mean, what forecast do we have: will Tokyo be more stable than Foremont with its power outage?

Per status.linode.com, there have been no reported outages for Linode Tokyo since it launched.

In other words: there's no such thing as a "forecast" for availability. The datacenter will fail, eventually. The response when that happens will be how the datacenter's reputation is judged. This might take years or decades: Fremont was absolutely fine for the better part of a decade until things went awry over the past year.

I'm sure the Linode staff wouldn't drop $50K on extra bag fees to hump all that gear all the way to Japan just to put it in a currently-shitty datacenter. So, I figure now is probably the time to get a good run :-) -rt (But do you think they call me "fmt1 the IPv6 innovator?" Noooo. But you screw one goat…)

Fremont isn't immune from earthquakes, either. There are multiple geological fault lines running all over the Bay Area. I wouldn't be surprised if Tokyo stood up better than Fremont in a similarly-sized earthquake, given what I've heard about Japan's insanely strict building standards. I'd take a once-in-a-lifetime earthquake over monthly power outages if I had to choose between the two.

@hybinet:

I wouldn't be surprised if Tokyo stood up better than Fremont in a similarly-sized earthquake, given what I've heard about Japan's insanely strict building standards.

I was in Japan during the Kobe earthquake in 1995. Most of the deaths were from people being burned alive in the fires after the quake; their wooden houses collapsed and pinned them down as natural gas fires swept through the city. On the TV news, you could hear people screaming as they fried while the reporters were covering the story from Kobe, and yes it was horrible. For that size of earthquake nothing can keep the buildings or datacenters up.

Photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … ng_001.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Hanshin-Awajiearthquake1995Kashiwai-building001.jpg

Earthquake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatHanshinearthquake

James

To be fair, most of the buildings which collapsed in the Kobe quake were built before the strict codes enacted in the 80s. Modern buildings are quite resilient. However, if something that devastating hit just outside Tokyo, as the Kanto quake did, priorities would hopefully not be on whether Linode is up.

The recent big one in Japan did result in rolling blackouts in Tokyo, but any datacenter worth its salt would survive that on generators.

Just today, central Japan was struck by a typhoon with 110mph+ winds and 12 inches of rain. According to the news, Toyota shut down 11 factories, and half a million households in and around Tokyo lost power. At the same time, a magnitude 5.3 earthquake hit north of Tokyo. These people must be having a hell of a day.

Meanwhile, Linodes in Tokyo seem to be running fine.

Looks good so far.

Well Iidabashi is a good location in Tokyo, it's a decent trek from the sea so it has no issues from Tsunami and it's very close to Otemachi which is the business end of town.

As for KDDI, it's the second largest telecommunications company in Japan with NTT being the first - if I was to put a datacentre with someone it would be with either of those two - seems like a good choice to me. KDDI are slowly becoming quite a powerhouse in Japan with them being ahead of the curve offering 1gbs net connections to households in tokyo and cell networks connections becoming some of the best here.

As for typhoons, several roll through town in a given year aren't a massive issue - I have little doubt that if a blackout did occur, a company like KDDI wouldnt have any problems.

Earthquakes on the other hand are a different kettle of fish as zun zun posted and Tokyo is due for a very large earthquake in the near future (the tokai earthquake) - that's just the risk of Japan, you never know where or when a big earthquake will hit, but then the Fremont facility must also be in the same situation as its also close to several fault lines too.

@crazyfruitbat:

KDDI are slowly becoming quite a powerhouse in Japan with them being ahead of the curve offering 1gbs net connections to households in tokyo and cell networks connections becoming some of the best here.

cough KDDI bagged the IPhone 5 cough - heh heh

James

rumours are that KDDI will get a rumoured phone that is rumoured to be announced on October 4th… There are so many rumours flying around here, and they may not even announce the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4S instead.

@Guspaz:

rumours are that KDDI will get a rumoured phone that is rumoured to be announced on October 4th… There are so many rumours flying around here, and they may not even announce the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4S instead.

That's just a rumor.

James

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