The potential of a national blackout is a possibility, which we hope will never happen; but an event like this will disrupt normal operations across various sectors, including ours. However, we would like to assure you that we have put measures in place to avoid any disruption or risk to your business data or hosted servers.

We understand the concerns and inconveniences that such an event may cause. We have proactively implemented a series of measures to ensure that we can continue serving you to the best of our abilities, even in the face of a national blackout. We want to share these measures with you, so you have a clear understanding of our preparedness and the steps we will take to minimise any potential disruptions:

What IronTree have done:

We host our own backup platform and hardware for VPS/Hosting at the Vodacom Business Data centre, which is a Tier3 DC in South Africa, the highest tier a South African data centre can receive.

With that said, it means the data centre has all the necessary redundancies in place when it comes to backup power, and these include:

• 2 Diesel Generators each with 4500 litres of fuel in the main tank and 46 thousand litres of diesel available in the reserve tank – enough to run the entire data centre.
• Vodacom has secured agreements with Bulk Diesel Supplies who are always on standby to provide Diesel to various Data Centres within stringent SLAs to ensure enough capacity is always available and attainable during emergency periods like loadshedding. Vodacom developed a separate process to ensure quick and timely payments of suppliers for Diesel to avoid any delays due to Purchase Orders or any other supply chain processes.
• Vodacom Business follows industry standards in running data centres. Each of the Data Centres have their own configuration and capabilities on uninterrupted power supply to ensure continuous operation and running of customer services during load shedding or any emergency power outages.
• Vodacom has deployed rooftop and other types of Solar deployments across Vodacom owned properties in different regions including Data Centres such Midrand Data Park, etc. The current deployed solar panels are providing an alternative source of power to other areas of Data Centres such as office space, passage walkthroughs but not the hosting areas where customer data is hosted. These are deployed as an additional source of power for the above-mentioned areas, whilst generators are mainly used for backup power to the data centre space.
•  Vodacom has been in the data centre business for decades with no downtime recorded to date, which is positive, considering the previous and current load shedding schedules with different regions of the country.
• IronTree have configured their backup and hosting platform to make use of the dual redundant power supplies by having an A+B power feed to each component of our backup platform.
• IronTree have implemented both hardware and software monitors so we can be notified of any outages as soon as they occur which allows us to be proactive in keeping services online.
• IronTree have ensured that critical teams have access to backup power to ensure we are always able to be contacted.

What you can do as an IronTree Customer or Reseller:

Backup clients

• Ensuring regular backups are being done by checking daily reports of backups.
• Doing regular internal audits to ensure all critical devices have security and backup systems in-place.
• Doing regular test restores to ensure integrity of data being backed up.
• Alerting IronTree on any failures or warnings when technical assistance is required.
• Considering moving server workloads to our Hosting Cloud platform to alleviate any concerns on critical systems on-site.

Hosting clients:

• It is advisable to move to our Redundant Internet at the Data Centre for your Hosted servers if you have not already moved over.
• Ensure that you have all your security systems in place for local devices like AV/Anti-Malware, Device control, Patch Management and Vulnerability scans.
• Ensure you have backup power in the form of generators or UPS’s for internet to ensure you can always connect to your servers.

While we have taken significant steps to mitigate the impact of a national blackout, we understand that unforeseen challenges may arise. In such cases, we assure you that we will work diligently to resolve any issues promptly and transparently. Our commitment to your satisfaction remains unwavering, and we appreciate your understanding and patience during such extraordinary circumstances.

We recommend you subscribe to our status page at https://status.irontree.co.za to ensure you are kept up to date with any maintenance or outages we may be experiencing.

We encourage you to reach out to us if you have any specific concerns or questions. Our support channels will remain open throughout, and we are here to assist you.