Last week we held the 5th annual AWS re:Invent conference. This conference is my favorite opportunity to get into more detail with customers and partners and to learn more about some of the incredible innovations AWS customers are producing. The first year, I was impressed by the conference scale. Back in 2012 it still felt like early days in cloud computing and yet 6,000 people were in attendance. This year 32,000 made the trip to Las Vegas and it was a big and pretty exciting week.
I had a particularly busy Tuesday where I started the day doing the Analyst Summit keynote, presented at the Partner Summit Keynote and, that evening, did the first keynote. Starting a presentation at 8pm was a bit unusual but, at least for me, what really caught me by surprise is we had a band. As I arrived back stage I could hear music which is pretty normal but, when I looked up at one of the monitors, it was Reggie Watts and Karen performing live. The Reggie Watts band did an excellent job and I wish I had access to a video of it.
There is video for two of the three talks I did:
- Tuesday Night with James Hamilton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyOAjFNPAbA)
- AWS 2106 Partner Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyNt2lPOEoY)
In the partner summit, my section is 41:00 through 1:00:00.
James,
In your “Tuesday Night Live” presentation, you discussed a transfer switch misoperation under apparent ground fault conditions, describing it as the same that happened to the 2013 Superbowl. I love reading about failure conditions, so I went on a little research binge and found that the report from the forensics investigation (http://entergy-neworleans.com/content/superbowl/130202_Report.pdf). It doesn’t talk about any ground fault conditions, only a misoperating component in a relay designed to open a feeder disconnect in the event of the loss of a phase.
Is there anywhere I can read more about the ground fault non-switch scenario you described in your presentation?
There was no inside-the-data center ground fault and that is exactly my point. The facility did not have a problem but the switchgear incorrectly locked out the backup power. The customer called in the utility to investigate and they reported the facility experienced a switch fault that locked out the backup generator.
Under rare circumstances the switch gear incorrectly determines there is a problem and does not transfer the load to generator. When this happens, the generators are running but not taking load due to switch gear lock-out and the critical load is dropped when the UPSs are exhausted.
Ah, so it was “like the 2013 Superbowl” as in an error in the switchgear logic caused a fault under designed operating conditions. Thanks!
Yes, exactly.
Thanks a lot James. very nice of you to make this available
hi James I enjoyed the talk very much at AWS. is there a chance to get a copy of the slidedeck (pdf format) posted? Thank you very much
Sure, no problem Eric. The PDF is now posted to: http://mvdirona.com/jrh/talksandpapers/ReInvent2016_James%20Hamilton.pdf