June 2007 was the wettest in over 50 years in the UK. July has had a good run at making the previous month look like a light shower. The results have been quite literally splashed across our television screens for weeks now, with entire villages and towns underwater, and emergency crews working through the night to pump water out of critical power sub stations.
Whilst the general press has covered the human and social implications, the specific challengesf aced by business, and in particular technology firms, has yet to be fully assessed. With a number of ISPs having already lost network POP (Point of Presence) sites and even datacenters around the country, the implications of flooding are clear. Firms do not even have to be in flood plains to be seriously affected. One popular UK hosting firm had a reduced support service during the flooding due to the health and safety implications of their teams working in offices with no drainage and fresh water supplies.
Assuming that climate change means we are likely to see more of this in years to come, it is now inconceivable that the UK Internet infrastructure remains the same. Currently, more Internet traffic goes through London than any other city on the globe1. Within London, it is well recognised that there is a significant network and hosting concentration in the Docklands area. All those megawatts of power, gigabits of fibre, and millions of sq foot of datacentre space are currently protected from flooding by the London barrier. Like a number of the Internet facilities it is protecting, this is itself reaching its shelf life. Discussions are ongoing for a replacement or enhancement of the flood defences along the Thames, but the July 2007 experience shows, even well designed flood defences can and are increasingly being breached under exceptional circumstances.
Despite all of this, the short term economics of Internet and other network concentration in the Docklands area have resulted in many hosting and broadband ISPs being almost entirely reliant on this part of the City of London. Whilst many of the smaller ISPs will consider the risk / benefit ratio of locating outside of the Docklands region incompatible with the margins they currently achieve in a highly competitive market, moving out of Docklands, let along outside the M252 can appear too costly in terms of network and bandwidth costs.
In addition, the critical peering points for the UK Internet infrastructure are all located in London. Whilst there is a small peering exchange in Manchester and a dwindling handful of ISPs peering on a switch in Edinburgh, LINX remains the pre-eminent peering point. Whilst located in a number of London datacenters, LINX do not exist outside of London. Discussions have taken place in order to consider extended peering on both economic development and disaster planning grounds, but have never really come to anything. This network centre of gravity around London may prove to be a noose around the industry's neck should the unthinkable happen to Docklands.
For larger ISPs, particularly those targeting corporate, government, and high availability applications, it may be considered almost negligent to locate infrastructure in flood risk areas such as the Thames gateway. In addition, the costs of Metro let alone National networks are coming down to the extent that 500 miles of fibre optics pale into insignificance against the indirect (e.g. insurance premiums) and direct costs of co-locating in the Docklands areas.
Since 2006 many carrier-neutral datacentre operators have been subsumed through aggressive M&A activity, and the emergence of Private Equity houses who are sweating their assets more effectively than previous business managers. For the customers, this combination of consolidation, new management, and increasing demand for datacentre space have led to prices at many popular locations increasing by more than 300% within 18 months.
We have to assume that a combination of commercial drivers and increasing awareness of the risks in the Docklands area will eventually result in decentralisation. With a move to the regions will come more competition, flattening of network costs across the UK, and most importantly, reduced risk and better service for Internet users up and down the country.
Here's hoping.
1 Telegeography Research Inc (www.telegeography.com).
2 The M25 is a key ring road around the greater London area.
Dr Aydin Kurt-Elli, CEO Lumison