PEER 1 Customers Weather the Northeast Blackout Without Disruption

On Thursday, August 14, 2003 the largest blackout in North American history took place, with a massive power outage throughout parts of northeastern United States and eastern Canada. The Northeast Blackout affected an estimated 10 million people in the Canadian province of Ontario (about one-third of the population of Canada), and 40 million people in eight US states (about one-seventh of the population of the US). Outage-related financial losses were estimated at $6 billion USD ($6.8 billion CDN). source: Wikipedia

Satellite imagery one day before the blackout.

Satellite imagery the night of the blackout.

PEER 1 and nearly 500 of its web-centric customers continued "business as usual" while in the midst of the crippling blackout and during the follow up period of rolling power outages. All of PEER 1's datacenters and related Internet network infrastructure remained fully functional, with no customers suffering downtime or loss of connectivity to the Internet.

PEER 1 datacenters in affected cities such as Toronto and New York, operated on back-up diesel generators until normal power was resumed the following morning. "Our engineers were kept busy throughout Thursday night as other networks connected to PEER 1 lost power at different times through the night," said Mark Teolis, PEER 1's VP of Network and Co-location. "As other networks lost power due to overloaded generators and failed battery systems, we had to constantly change the traffic routes used to ensure optimal performance for our customers."

While most other datacenters tried unsuccessfully to use batteries and mobile generators, PEER 1 made the decision long before to have diesel generators installed in case of such a disaster. As a result, PEER 1's Internet infrastructure performed flawlessly during the blackout and ensured the company delivered on its 100% Uptime Guarantee to customers.

PEER 1 also provided power and connectivity to fellow tenants in the Toronto and New York buildings it resides in, and helped them keep their mission-critical operations live.