Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 25, 1993                   TAG: 9312240148
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MCLEAN                                LENGTH: Short

TRY TO SHAKE VIRGINIA'S VISA CENTER, JUST TRY

From backup batteries to earthquake-proof walls, Visa International security planners went to considerable lengths in designing the McLean "super center," one of the credit card giant's two computer complexes.

The McLean center and a sister operation in Britain together processed about $500 billion in transactions last year on 300 million cards circulated in 247 countries and territories.

The importance of the McLean center isn't evident from the exterior, and Visa wants it that way. There are no Visa signs on the bland stucco walls of the squat office building; for security reasons on a recent press tour, Visa asked that the exterior not be photographed.

The building is designed to withstand an 8.0 earthquake on the Richter scale, about the same size of the quake that nearly razed San Francisco in 1906.

The center of this $300 million computer and communications network has three sources of power: the local utility, three diesel-powered backup generators and, in case those fail, a basement with two enormous banks of lead-acid batteries. The monthly utility bill: about $42,000.

Visa leases 9 million miles of fiber-optic cables in an overlapping system designed to avoid system crashes if a single line is severed.

The cooling system for the computer and communications technology is water-fed, with 24,000 gallons stored underground in case of a local supply disruption, Spengler said. Design of the plumbing took a cue from a the cooling systems of nuclear reactors.

- Associated Press