Dive Brief:
- Redfin’s entire site is hosted within one Seattle web hosting facility without a backup, according to Geekwire, which pulled the information from Redfin’s IPO filing released last week.
- Redfin does not "currently have a back-up web hosting facility in a different geographic area," according to the filings. The company said it would suffer "significant" interruptions to its website and mobile applications, harming its business, if the facility suffered an outage or downtime for "any reason." Interruptions would happen even if there was a temporary outage, according to the filing.
- Redfin previously ran its operations on Amazon Web Services, but its unclear why it changed. When asked by Geekwire, Redfin declined to comment.
Dive Insight:
If Redfin is in fact relying on just one data center without any backups, it’s certainly flirting with disaster. A simple strain of ransomware or a power outage could do enough harm to seriously damage the company’s business. Without comment from Redfin, it's difficult to know the nuances of their infrastructure.
Reports of data center-related disasters crop up in the news all the time and are usually a PR headache. Last month, a power surge following a power outage damaged servers and ultimately led to an IT failure that caused 75,000 British Airways (BA) passengers to become stranded. The power surge was enough to knock out BA’s flight, baggage and communication systems.
