Is the City of Los Angeles expecting the big one?

[General of Darkness]

This is not a story or a link to a story.

Since most people know I do sales in IT I chase IT opportunities.

This one is interesting because I have to assume that the city of Los Angeles has a disaster recovery solution, but this is odd because of the requirements. For disaster recover you have a location that is hundreds of miles away that has a copy of all your data, but on top of that they want a facility within 50 miles that provides space for 30 employees. That's the odd part because it's a 3 year contract, so they'll be paying for the space regardless. Just doing the math in my head your looking at probably 9K square feet for 30 people, you know bath rooms etc. That alone just for the space at 2 bucks a foot is 18K then you've connections of probably 2K then the gear etc I'm thinking around 400K per year with overhead etc and over 3 years equals 1.2 million for a space that might not ever be used.

This is from the bid spec.

Location(s)
The business recovery facility, where City staff can conduct warm site
tests, must be located within 50 miles of the Los Angeles Civic Center.
The warm site computer center must be no closer than 300 miles to Los
Angeles City Hall. Proposer's receiving docks must be temperature controlled.

B2. Alternate Warm Site Capability
Alternate warm sites of equivalent or greater hardware/software
capability must be identified in the event the primary warm site is not
available when the City has declared disaster recovery mode.

B3. Office Space
At the business recovery site, proposers must supply on-site office
space for 30 City employees with TN3270 emulation PCs. In addition,
parking spaces for these employees must be available. Proposers must
define common facilities for City personnel use. Adequate drinking
water and toilet facilities must be available.

Now the question I have, what are they expecting.?

[gunDriller]

Now the question I have, what are they expecting.?

12 million people in the middle of the desert with a 3 day supply of food and water.

what could possibly go wrong ?


/\ actually, have to give Mike Ruppert the author-ial credit for that.


It's possible that they're just playing catch-up. A disaster planner for LA county has to deal with earthquakes, fires, tidal waves, Zombies, Hollywood interference, and the sound of Jews whining.

Tough job !

[Libertytree]

You have to define "space", is it the sqft of the building under air, the total sqft of the property or a combo. The distances seem reasonable between the 3 sites. Are the 2 alt sites 365 manned sites?

[General of Darkness]

You have to define "space", is it the sqft of the building under air, the total sqft of the property or a combo. The distances seem reasonable between the 3 sites. Are the 2 alt sites 365 manned sites?

Space being a building, and 365 a year available.

[Libertytree]

I'd try and get the job that was 300 miles away, maintaining that unit.

[General of Darkness]

I'd try and get the job that was 300 miles away, maintaining that unit.

I love you LT, but that would be a company that does that specifically. It's basically a large warehouse with servers that you lease space on.

[Libertytree]

I love you LT, but that would be a company that does that specifically. It's basically a large warehouse with servers that you lease space on.

Thanks bro but I was thinkin that your IT company had or is going to have one of these units...or you have knowledge of one. I understand the premise, or I think I do...but the place has to at least have a caretaker/tech/security dude in the interim.

[General of Darkness]

Thanks bro but I was thinkin that your IT company had or is going to have one of these units...or you have knowledge of one. I understand the premise, or I think I do...but the place has to at least have a caretaker/tech/security dude in the interim.

That's the funny part, it doesn't state that.

My only point is that they seem to be gearing up for something.

[Dogman]

Man vs Mother Nature.

Nature will win all the time, if the big ones hits LA will be in the crap heap. It could also trigger the other big faults under the city/area. They have really not a clue what will happen or the duration and magnitude when it does. As Ponce says

" Many will die "

They have been saying it will probably happen within 30 years since I was living in San Diego in the 50's. Move the really important data/records out of the city to save them.

[Libertytree]

That's the funny part, it doesn't state that.

My only point is that they seem to be gearing up for something.

You got the idea from somewhere in your IT circle and I think it's an opportunity for someone. I am curious if this is an isolated case or if this is a bit more widespread?

[Horn]

More likely civil unrest/terror than an Earthquake, Earthquake insurance coverage doesn't go that high.

Insurance companies are probably in bed all the way from Cisco to China when the specs are wrote up and handed thru.

[ShortJohnSilver]

Commercial space would be closer to $14 a square foot per year, if not a lot more than that given the expenses.

[Glass]

I think it is just a substantial disaster recovery plan. We looked at this kind of thing about 4 years ago. Even looked into fitting out a prime move trailer with a mobile hot recovery center. Big bucks but if you can share cost across a couple of clients it can be doable. Govt thinks differently to business so they are likely not looking at things like accidental fire to the premises type of disaster recovery like a business might. So Govt is probably not a candidate for shared disaster resources. But you never know I guess.

[ShortJohnSilver]

I don't know their current datacenter setup, of course, it might be relatively benign, in that datacenter usage keeps increasing and they have so much taxation to track that it is "worth it" for them to be able to continue the oppression in the case of riots or a disaster.

You could check for earlier contract awards to see if they bid this or something similar in the past. My guess, they got sold a gold-plated solution from IBM, Sungard, or Oracle , then realized they were paying triple what they could likely pay if they bid it out.

[Silver Rocket Bitches!]

I'm in IT for a Fortune 500 company and we do disaster recovery exercises twice a year. It's a huge waste of resources IMO but the board of directors want it as a contingency just in case. We have another one coming up in October where I'll get to sit there for 10 hours on a Saturday restoring servers.