Yesterday's outage was at the building housing The Times of Shreveport, and affected (I believe) at least four other Louisiana sites. Power was restored after about an hour, according to one of my readers. Here's the memo:
To: All Gannett Louisiana users
DESCRIPTION
The Shreveport building has lost power and the generator the powers the data center during outages failed to start. We have determined that there is a battery issue with the generator and building services is working on it.
Meanwhile, the datacenter containing the editorial and classified systems for the state is now completely down. At this point we don’t have an ETA for when we will have either generator or main power restored.
We will keep everyone informed as we know more about the situation.
EFFECT AT YOUR LOCATION
All systems used by the entire GANLA region are currently not operational while we wait for power to be restored.
SUPPORT
Visit the Gannett Midwest IT Servicedesk home page or contact Gannett Midwest IT Helpdesk @ (XXX-XXX-XXXX) for questions. Use Service Desk Web Self Service to search for knowledge and manage your open support tickets.
To: All Gannett Louisiana users
DESCRIPTION
The Shreveport building has lost power and the generator the powers the data center during outages failed to start. We have determined that there is a battery issue with the generator and building services is working on it.
Meanwhile, the datacenter containing the editorial and classified systems for the state is now completely down. At this point we don’t have an ETA for when we will have either generator or main power restored.
We will keep everyone informed as we know more about the situation.
EFFECT AT YOUR LOCATION
All systems used by the entire GANLA region are currently not operational while we wait for power to be restored.
SUPPORT
Visit the Gannett Midwest IT Servicedesk home page
Must have the same emergency generators as the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan. Probably got a great deal on them.
ReplyDeleteOn a related subject, I see an Australian billionaire is building a new luxury liner - the Titanic II. Can't wait to buy a ticket . . .
And here's the downside to consolidation. Instead of just one site losing power in the past, now a failure impacts multiple ones.
ReplyDeleteGod forbid this ever happens to a design hub...although the computer system going bonkers a few months back produced the same result.
So, re the memo, if the power was out, how could anyone visit the Gannett Midwest IT Service desk?
ReplyDeleteAnd, as another person mentioned here, we're just waiting for the day the Des Moines hub goes down. They never have bad weather in Iowa!
When facilities and job functions are consolidated (such has been the case with a lot of companies such as Gannett) - maintenance is all the more critical. Gannett has typically done the absolute least they can do maintaining their facilities/equipment in recent past and now they are trying to do even less by outsourcing all the maintenance to the lowest bidder. A few more events such as this and the company may start to realize that "cheap you pay - cheap you get". Not protecting critical assets with adequate maintenance is penny wise but dollar foolish.
ReplyDeleteSimilar situation happened at the Florida Today a few weeks ago. No maintenance to the UPS system caused it to fail. That caused a fuse to blow followed by a brown out. Building maintenance failure to do there job is what caused the situation they did not even have the fuse on hand causing even more delays. ABM say what you want. They have atleast recognized that what FT refered to as an electrician was very limited in his knowledge and not an electrician at all. He is not allowed to do electrical work any longer. From now on it will be done by a licensed electrician.
ReplyDelete5:36pm - you are 50% correct in the cause of the UPS failure at Florida Today. The root cause was lack of maintenance for cost savings. Hell, look at the rest of the building, leaking windows, drywall falling down and let's not overlook the mildew smell throughout the building. The blame can only be on those who cut the maintenance budget to look good. I wonder if the savings from not maintaining the old UPS was cheaper than the NEW UPS they put in? I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteAgree - in their never ending effort to get things done on the cheap, Gannett has asked too much from staff in the past. It all boils down to the company taking critical assets for granted and not spending adequately to keep things in a reliable condition. Not sure if ABM has enough money in the Gannett contract to do a top notch job or not but a real electrician doing electrical work is a good start. Unfortunately an "electrician" alone is not even close to adequate in the case of maintaining UPS/generators, etc. Due to the proprietary nature of this equipment, OEM trained techs are needed to perform at least the more critical PM's. It is unrealistic to expect an electrician to have necessary expertise. Hopefully ABM will hire expert factory trained help to maintain and test critical power equipment or not much will improve. Bottom line is that(regardless of who performs the work) Gannett needs to step up to the plate and up the ante on maintenance of critical infrastructure . . . what they have done in the past (especially at some of the smaller sites) has been pretty dismal.
ReplyDeletePMs are done under contract in Shreveport as well. Get all the facts on this event before you make assumptions, this generator has been maintained as well as the UPS. Zanmiller made sure of that.
DeleteTech flys into Shreveport from JT Pack twice a year to do pm on ups. Shreveport runs generator every Thursday on auto start. Shreveport has licensed electrician on staff that installed all of this equipment and was there Wednesday night. I love Monday morning quarter backs.
DeleteYeah 5:26-you know what you're talking about. Building electricians don't mess with $350,000 UPS systems and transfer switches. It's not like the little battery back up UPS under your desk to save the info on your computer. In Phoenix, the UPS systems are under a service contract and insured, so long as authorized personnel work on them. We always keep 400 amp fuses lying around Maybe you can go and work for ABM-I heard that their standards are pretty low and judging by the new hires at the Republic, it is true! By the way, we run our emergency generators every Friday, rain or shine.
ReplyDeleteShreveport runs every Thursday. Same licensed electrician that installed generator in 06 and new ups system the same year was on hand Wednesday night during the outage. By the way he is a gannett employee. There was an outage just over a month ago and all went well as it has on 4 other occasions since it was installed.
Delete"Use Service Desk Web Self Service to search for knowledge ..."
ReplyDeleteBWA-HAH-HA-HAH!!!! Oooh, that's rich.
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ReplyDelete6:01 I removed your comment because you accused someone -- by name -- of making sexual advances toward an employee without offering any proof.
ReplyDelete