Multi-hazard Shared Fate Assessments of Mission-Critical Asset Portfolios
Abstract
We have recently worked on several projects in which the client has asked for a "shared fate" assessment of a portfolio of mission critical assets (e.g. data centers). In a shared fate assessment (known in some industries as a "portfolio risk" assessment), the probability and severity of simultaneous disruptions to multiple assets in a single event is analyzed. In the cloud computing and data storage sector, companies that own or lease data centers employ redundancy by storing data at multiple sites within a portfolio to provide virtually uninterrupted service to customers. This effectively eliminates customer disruption due to random, single-site events (e.g. accidental rupture of fiber cable) but does not necessarily provide similar resilience to rare natural hazards with widespread effects (e.g. hurricanes or earthquakes). Given this context, data center clients are especially interested in shared fate assessments.
We have performed multi-hazard shared fate assessments for portfolios of data centers in the United States, India, and Indonesia. Considered hazards have included earthquakes, hurricane winds, and flooding. The complexity of these analyses has ranged from high-level studies of the spatial extent of controlling hazards to Monte Carlo simulations of data center component fragilities to determine the probability that specific sub-groups of data centers experience simultaneous disruptions. In addition to effects on the sites themselves, we have considered the effects of these hazards on critical infrastructure (e.g. electrical power) and the extent to which multiple sites are reliant on the same components. As it becomes more important to precisely calculate the probability of simultaneous unlikely occurrences, further work will need to be done to understand how fragilities of components may be correlated and the sensitivity of results to assumptions about correlation.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMNH11B0773B
- Keywords:
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- 4306 Multihazards;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4313 Extreme events;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4328 Risk;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4332 Disaster resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS