An NSA data-gathering facility currently under construction in Bluffdale, Utah (Jimmy Urquhart/Reuters)
The NSA's Massive New Data Center Is Melting -- Atlantic Wire
The NSA's huge Utah data center is supposed to help U.S. intelligence collect billions of bytes of data when it opens this fall. But the agency hit a snag or two in trying to take the complex live: a mysterious, repeated electrical failure keeps melting the facility's equipment. The center, located in Utah in part because of a need to access the massive amounts of cheap electricity available there, has suffered 10 meltdowns over 13 months, starting in August 2012. Each incident created about $100,000 dollars in damage.
And according to the Wall Street Journal report on the facility, those problems could have a lot to do with the contractors (a running theme) tasked with building it. The Journal, using documents and interviews, outlines the delays and problems encountered by the agency in its completion of the mostly classified complex. Speaking to an official, the paper notes that the electrical problems plaguing the facility are like "a flash of lightning inside a 2-foot box." And those flashes, they continue, "create fiery explosions, melt metal and cause circuits to fail." So, why is it happening? It could be because of some cut corners in the design and construction of its electrical system:
Read more ....
Update #1: NSA data center suffers 'meltdowns,' is delayed by a year, report says -- PC World
Update #2: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center -- Wall Street Journal
My Comment: It looks like someone cut corners .... and with the nature of the contract being top secret .... we will probably never know the details on what caused this "surge".
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