We are a west-coast (San Francisco) firm. Our website, which is
> hosted by Verio, has been down since at least this morning. The
> problem appears to be a "proactive shutdown" by Verio's data center in
> Boca Raton, Florida. Since Verio provides hosting services for
> millions of customers, I expect that this action in Boca Raton is
> having internet-wide implications and affecting many, many businesses.
I gather it is back up, but I snipped that portion.
I don't know if Verio offers the option, but important web sites are usually dual homed, at least. More than dual is usually due to capacity and traffic. If you use two sites geographically far apart, you vastly increase the possibility that at least one will be up.
When they started building SS7 networks based on STPs, there was a rule of thumb to place each pair of the quad far enough apart to drive a hurricane or other natural disaster between them. I don't know what is done now.
Which reminds me, does anyone know why the US built a network of STPs and Europe went with switch to switch F links? A Brit at BT once said it was due to a lack of processing power in the 1AESS, but he was, of course, on the F link side.