How expensive can an unexpected power surge in the data center be? As recorded at Seattle's TechFlash, the State of Washington has found out, after a power surge knocked out its data center, racking up a cool $500,000 in costs. According to an Associated Press report, a contractor was working on installing a new high-voltage power line to the state's data center when some equipment shorted out, causing the first shutdown of the facility in 20 years. Backup generators turned on automatically, as designed, but then shut down, after another short was detected. The outage occurred on a Sunday afternoon, so many users were unaffected. The biggest impact was on people filing for unemployment benefits on the Employment Security Department, said the report.
