Nature Takes on Tech As Lightning Strikes Google FOUR TIMES Erasing Cloud Data

In an iconic moment of the data-driven society, a Google data-center in Belgium was struck not once, but four times by lightning during a storm.

The old adages apparently don’t apply in this modern age, as a power outage temporarily took down the computing facility after the repeated strikes of lightning hit its power grid.

The string of incidents resulted in a loss of a relatively small amount of cloud computing information, that nonetheless underscore the vulnerability of customer data. The London Telegraph reports:

Repeated lightning strikes have caused a Google data centre in Belgium to lose a small amount of data after the company was unable to restore some information.

Four successive strikes on the electricity grid that powers facilities in Saint-Ghislain, near Mons, affected 5 per cent of persistent, or non-virtual disks in the zone that powers Google Compute Engine, its cloud computing platform.

The problem was compounded when the data centre’s battery backup failed…

The real issue, though, is not the loss of data as much as it is the clash of power between one of nature’s most potent phenomenon and the height of technology.

With man reaching ever higher to harness electricity and electromagnetic energy, it is telling that lightning was – evidently – attracted so strongly to the power systems at these Google facilities that it struck repeatedly – again and again.

Clearly, running circles round the saying that lightning doesn’t strike twice was no coincidence or stroke of bad luck.

Computers and electrical devices are dangerous during lightning storms, and it seems more than likely that these massive computer facilities – which presumably were running during this storm – drew lightning in some way to their sensitive electrical systems.

Google took responsibility and acknowledged efforts to reinforce its hardware to prevent further data loss. But could this happen to other important computer facilities, and is there a factor that made Google’s cloud storage center more vulnerable than other high tech buildings?

The answer to that question could be intriguing, and could save untold millions in damage.