The ultimate DIY IT story, and our first IT Garage podcast, all in one

One of the greatest all-time DIY IT stories is the one that will be told, and re-told about how DirectNIC stayed up and running through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, which remains the greatest disaster to befall a major American city in the country's history: a catastrophe on par with the Chicago Fire and the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.

Sigmund "Sig" Solares is a lifelong New Orleans native and the CEO of DirectNIC, a substantial domain registrar and hosting service headquartered in the Crescent City, close to the Superdome. While DirectNIC's data center, on the 9th floor of a large office building, was not flooded out, it was victim to the complete loss of infrastructure suffered by the city surrounding it. Gone were electricity, ventillation, elevator service, water and, well, civilization. Yet Sig and his crew kept the service running — while all hell broke loose outside. Literally.

Once it was clear that trying to contact and talk with Sig would not constitute bad manners or an unwelcome distraction, we got on the phone and talked for about 45 minutes about a variety of subjects, many of which I hoped would go beyond the kind of thing already reported (often very well) in the press and countless blogs, including Interdictor, the lifeline-blog operated by Michael Barnett, who serves as Crisis Manager at DirectNIC. Interdictor remains one of the clearest voices of sanity and competence coming out of the heart of New Orleans.

My conversation with Sig will inform an upcoming essay in Linux Journal. Meanwhile it is also serving as our inaugural podcast in a series produced in partnership with IT Conversations, which recorded and produced the finished result.

So here it is: Surviving Katrina with DirectNIC. You can play it there, download the file, and subscribe as well.