Some sites have come back online, but Microsoft Bing Travel, Allrecipes.com, Big Fish Games and others remain unavailable as of 7 p.m. this evening, after a fire late last night shut down power at Seattle's Fisher Plaza data center. Bing Travel had said previously that it expected to be back up around 5 p.m., but the message has since been edited to omit that reference.
Bing Travel is based on technology Microsoft acquired in its purchase of Farecast. We asked Microsoft when Bing Travel would come back online, why the service hadn't been shifted previously to Microsoft data centers, and why a backup plan hadn't kicked in.
"We are working with all the right folks down there to get it restored as quickly as possible. Unfortunately nothing more we can say at this point," Microsoft spokeswoman Whitney Burk responded via email.
In addition to those previously reported, another Fisher Plaza tenant seriously affected by the outage was Telecom Transport Management, a company founded by former McCaw Cellular executives that offers wireless backhaul services. Some of its representatives were among those at the scene talking with building officials this morning trying to figure out a workaround.
Bing Travel's site describes the cause as a blown transformer. Here's what Jim Clayton, vice president and general manager of Fisher Communications' Seattle broadcast properties, told us when we were at the scene earlier today.
"We had a power surge last night, and the power surge overheated some of our switch gear, and the switch gear began to smoke, and when it smokes, the fire supression protocol takes over, and then it dumps water, so that really took the building offline, and because there was so much water there, even though our generator system did, in fact, work, it can't be put online just because of safety issues until we're certain that all of the water is out of the switch gear."
Read on for the statement issued late this afternoon by Fisher Communications, which owns the property.
Last night at approximately 11:10 pm, an incident in a garage-level electrical room disrupted power to Fisher Plaza East and knocked out the facility's backup generation system. The electrical room is where Fisher Plaza East receives its power from Seattle City Light.
Fisher officials, CP Management and Egis Engineering have been coordinating with Seattle City Light to restore power to the building. Fisher is bringing in electrical generators to restore power to the building, at which time it can further assess the situation. The Company is working to restore normal service to its customers as soon as possible.
Fisher Plaza East houses data and network operations and co-location facilities for several companies. Fisher regrets any inconvenience these companies or their customers may have experienced as a result of this incident. ...
The cause of the electrical fire remains under investigation, and the Company is working closely with Seattle City Light and outside experts to determine what caused this incident.
There were no injuries.
Previously: Seattle data center fire knocks out Bing Travel, other Web sites
How one CTO avoided a Web site disaster after data center fire
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