May 12, 2004

Information Systems and Services Opens New Data Center

Virginia Campus Facility Promises to Provide Stability and Security for GW’s Critical Data

By Greg Licamele

The computerized guts of the University now churn 32 miles away from Foggy Bottom in the new GW data center at the Virginia Campus.

Systems that make the University run, such as the Enterprise Accounting System, Banner, GWMail and the Student Data Mart now exist both in Foggy Bottom and in Loudoun County, creating a redundant, sustainable center nearly unmatched for a higher education institution.

“We have the critical data in both centers,” said Ron Bonig, executive director of technology operations. “All transactions and data are written simultaneously to both locations, so should we lose one of them, we have all of the data that existed in the other one.”

This new, 10,000 square-foot facility is supported by 12 staff members, two dozen server racks, two independent power systems, 130 tons of cooling from redundant air conditioners and top-notch security. Staffers work 24 hours a day at the new network operations center to monitor systems, security, The Weather Channel and CNN.

The key elements of the two-data center model are the capabilities to perform routine maintenance and to sustain operations if one facility should experience a disruption.

“You can’t be up 100 percent of the time, but you can give the perception to your user community that you are up because you have that redundancy in going back and forth to data centers,” said Jonathan Piersol, director of plans and operations. “The community can continue its work while we conduct routine maintenance.”

Beyond the day-to-day activities, the two data centers support each other in case of natural or man-made emergencies. Since the centers are so far apart, the chances are slim that both facilities would be impacted by an event at the same time, Bonig said.

“In this area of the United States, we can’t come up with a disaster that would hit both of them at once,” Bonig said. “Hurricanes this far inland don’t knock down modern buildings. Neither one is near a flood plain. It would take an F4 or F5 tornado to take out either one of these buildings.”

John Petrie, assistant vice president for public safety and emergency management, said the configuration for GW’s data centers cannot be compared to any other university that he knows of.

“The proof of its reliability is based on the fact that the two centers are connected by dark fiber [unused fiber-optic cable] in a 104-mile loop, which is configured and installed so that its two legs are physically separate throughout,” ensuring service, Petrie said.

Two key events happened to make this data center a reality — Sept. 11, 2001, and the acquisition of the former PSINet building in Ashburn. Bonig said Information Systems and Services (ISS) was already in negotiations with a Philadelphia company that provides back-up services in June 2001. However, that service could take days to recover GW’s critical systems at only a limited capacity. That turnaround time, coupled with the terrorist attacks of 2001, which put many companies out of business because their data was not recorded in more than one location, compelled GW to seek another solution. In early 2002, the opportunity to purchase the former PSINet building came along and ISS found its golden answer to become self-sufficient. Instead of taking days to recover from a system failure, it now only takes a few hours, sometimes minutes, with all of the data preserved off site from Foggy Bottom.

The data center also has raised the interest of some members of the DC Consortium of Universities who are looking to support their needs while covering some of GW’s costs. Piersol said GW could explore opportunities to host machines of other non-profit organizations, too. Approximately 25 percent of the data center at the Virginia Campus is being used, while the Foggy Bottom location is 100 percent full.

“Our whole philosophy with this is not to recover from a problem, it’s to be able to deal with a problem or incident without people knowing about it,” Bonig said. “It’s continuity of operations, not recovery of operations.”

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu