DirectNIC Stays Online in New Orleans Facility

Hunkered down in a data center on an upper floor of a New Orleans office building, a skeleton crew of staff at DirectNIC have kept the domain registrar operating throughout Hurricane Katrina and the catastrophic flooding that has engulfed the city. "We haven't lost service once during this entire disaster, and we have three weeks of backup power secured," CEO Sigmund Solares said on the DirectNIC website. "Our staff is safe and well - some have been working around the clock in New Orleans to keep clients running smoothly, and other employees have left to safer locations to keep an eye on the network from afar."

DirectNIC is housed on the 10th and 11th floors of a 27-floor office tower near Lafayette Square, a portion of the city that has escaped the worst of the flooding. Employees have live-blogged their efforts and posted photos of the storm's impact on the DirectNIC facility. An on-site webcam broadcast video of looting on surrounding streets. DirectNIC is the world's 11th-largest registrar, with more than 1.1 million domains registered. It is part of InterCosmos Media group, which also operates hosting/colocation provider Zipa.