A power failure at a downtown Minneapolis data center called the 511 Building is likely behind disruptions to several government services last week.
The Midwest Internet Cooperative Exchange is housed in the facility and confirmed the outage to MPR News. Its partners include some of the public-sector networks that were affected, including Dakota County 911.
Some voting machines also lost internet connectivity, and state agency websites were affected. It’s unclear if the same outage is behind the pause in flights at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that same day.
Metro State University cybersecurity expert Faisal Kaleem said the data center is a crucial connection point.
I worked at the 511 Building when MRNet was there. I used to give tours of the hub room. It was an integral location for the Internet in Minnesota back then. While there’s a lot more redundancy today, it still is a key player.