During a massive flood in London, nearly every datacentre went down."

TL;DR; Rackspace was the only London datacentre to stay online during a major flood because they regularly tested their backup systems by simulating real failures. Practising failure recovery under controlled but challenging conditions built true resilience in their operations. Development managers should regularly test their systems and teams under realistic failure scenarios to ensure they can recover when it matters most.

Published on 16 May 2025

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

1 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/8SSU0fALhd8

During a massive flood in London, nearly every datacentre went down.

Except one: Rackspace.

Their backup systems worked. Their power held. They stayed online. When asked why, the CEO didn’t present a whitepaper. He held up a key.

Every month, he walked into the power room and pulled the main breaker. On purpose. Shut the whole thing off. Live test. No excuses.

It was painful. Risky. Uncomfortable. And that’s exactly why it worked.

You don’t build resilience by talking about it. You build it by living through the failure, on your terms, not the disaster’s.

If your systems only work when conditions are perfect, you’ve already lost. If your team has never practised failing safely, they won’t know how to recover when it’s real.

Real resilience is earned through pain. If it’s hard, do it more often.

Also published on: LinkedIn

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