Disaster Recovery in New Zealand - The Land of the Volcanos, Earthquakes and Tornados

While The University of Auckland is implementing infrastructure to take us into the future, the major threats in the future may come from Mother Nature.
While running crisis scenarios in NZ, we have to think of a number of different scenarios to those usually considered likely in Queensland. There are possibilities of volcanos, earthquakes and tornados, as well as regular issues related to power supply in Auckland. These scenarios influence the way we look at Disaster Recovery (DR) and the makeup of our Datacentres.
The University of Auckland is the 5th largest IT provider in New Zealand and provides services to other universities, through hosting of AUT equipment and National eResearch equipment. Crisis Management and Disaster Recovery is a key priority for the University. A new Data Centre is currently being built to address some of our DR issues.
As well as planning for a Crisis and DR, The University of Auckland has experienced a number of very real scenarios in the 8 months since I have moved from Queensland where power has been lost to the city, loss of air-conditioning in the Primary data centre and loss of power to the secondary data centre. A case study reviewing these DR incidents will be provided with an overview of lessons learnt. The presentation will also provide a comparison to lessons learnt from the fire at UQ and other DR incidents I have been involved in.