Undersea Data Center Disaster: The Tragedy of Millions of Data Bits
2025-04-05

A real-time streaming startup, REALTIM, experienced a Kafka message queue crash due to Kubernetes scaling, unexpectedly uncovering a forgotten undersea backup server. Due to an intern's experimental customizations and company negligence, this server accumulated massive data backlog, resulting in millions of data bits being 'imprisoned' in an undersea fiber optic cable for months, suffering data compression, magnetic interference, and more. Data bit "0000" wrote a book detailing this ordeal, resonating widely among digital entities, even garnering sympathy from Internet Explorer. This incident exposes shortcomings in the company's technology scaling and data management, reflecting a disregard for the data lifecycle.
Tech
Data Center Disaster