Data centres are to be found in a variety of premises. At one extreme there are those in purpose-built offices, many in city centres, business parks or industrial estates. At the other extreme are those that have been located in bank vaults, old mines and bunkers. Each have strengths but also weaknesses - so let's explore a few.
Today there are many threats that have to be considered by data centre owners and the clients that use them. Many of these arise from problems created by man while others result from natural disasters.
City centre based data centres
Placing a data centre in an office block in a city centre, London for example or a business park has the advantage that they will be close to many of their clients enabling their IT specialists to "nip over" when ever the need arises.
Many of these recently built facilities have the ability to control their internal environment: access to computer rooms, firewalls, equipment redundancy for example. Unfortunately they cannot guarantee threats from the external environment including explosions in or fire spreading from adjacent buildings, buglers breaking through external walls, floors or ceilings intent on stealing valuable equipment to order. These may seem far fetched but they occur regularly typified recent years by about 60,000 fires per annum in non domestic building.
Turning now to natural disasters, what needs to be considered? Flash and tidal flooding have caused chaos recently and are likely to be even more of a problem in the future as our weather patterns change. All too many properties that could be considered may have been built on flood plains that could pose problems in the future.
Should you decide not to "go local" then all the above needs consideration plus earthquakes. These occur at an alarming rate: three somewhere in the world per day. Very recently their effects have been reported in New Zealand: Christchurch, Lorca in Spain, Tohoku in Japan, even Ripon in England!
Bunker based data centres
Now few data centres will have been constructed taking into account all these events, unlike bunkers and vaults. They by their builders very military or security culture are built to withstand attacks from the outside world. Being below ground or set into mountains they offer the advantage of being able to shrug off most of the problems identified above, some even the effects of an atomic bomb.
Possibly one of their greatest weaknesses is that many bunkers and mines are located away from major centres of population. But in to days connected world the need to "nip over" is a luxury as the vast majority of tasks that may occur in side a data centre should be resolvable over the internet or by the remote hands that will be available 24/365 in all tier 3+ data centres. The need to "nip over" has become more of a perception than a necessity.
Cooling is one of the greatest challenges for data centres today with the result that many innovative techniques are being considered. One in particular is "free cooling". This involves taking air or water that is considerably colder than the temperature in server rooms and using it to chill coolants. Now many bunkers and mines are located in mountainous areas where they can take advantage of cold air and subterranean streams. Mountains are also ideal for the generation of hydroelectric power which is again in demand as it is both sustainable and carbon neutral - ideal for corporations with Corporate Social Responsibility programmes.
So the rational for building data centres in bunkers is clear. They provide vastly improved protection from the outside world be it from man made or natural disasters. Many are located in areas where the benefits of the local environment can also be used to provide more cost effective cooling and plenty of environmentally friendly power.
For more information see Ten reasons to choose a bunker data centre.
Bruce Barnard has worked as a company doctor in a wide range of industries for over 30 years. The markets covered are as divers as packaging, consumer electronics, golf and data centres. He has been involved in a wide variety of marketing and market research projects to identify what buyers wants from the products or services they buy. His aim is help suppliers sell and buyers get the maximum benefits from their chosen purchase. Check out http://www.deltalis-datacentre.co.uk/
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