Heat Wave Brought Down MySpace

Posted on July 24, 2006

The BBC reports that MySpace is blaming its recent power outage on the heat wave in California.

The company blamed the closure on record-breaking heat in Los Angeles where its data servers are held.
The high temperatures caused "massive power outages" a spokesman for the company said.
MySpace lets users build a personalised home page and has almost three million visitors each month.
A MySpace spokesperson said: "Due to the record breaking heat in Los Angeles over the weekend the area where MySpace's servers are stored had massive power outages.
"With power resumed, the network is now up and running."

Netcraft has more details on the outage. This is a very serious issue for technology companies. As global warming continues to increase temperatures and make longer lasting heat waves this could pose serious problems for Internet companies that must have power 24 hours a day. Companies may want to have redundant hosting in other regions of the U.S. so they won't be shut down if a heat wave cuts power in a particular region. The BBC article said some Yahoo services also had problems. More blackouts are possible today in California.