Escape from Data Alcatraz

nihilist_1137 writes "Zdnet is reporting on a new information facility that is built to surive the worst.Triangular in shape, two of the sides house offices while the third, a large rectangular block if taken in isolation, contains two data centres, as well as the infrastructure to ensure that Web sites continue to function come fire, flood, natural catastrophy or foreign invasion."

Comments

Re:What for?

[davidesh]

http://www.hostworks.com.au/networks.html

2 Connections to Telstra and 2 to Optus at different exchanges

"Hostworks Control Centre features over half a gigabit per second of connectivity. This is delivered via four high capacity divergent path links connected to Optus and Telstra.

As a matter of policy, Hostworks ensures that it always has four times the capacity of its peak traffic loads."

Re:Foreign Invasion?

[linzeal]

At a certain datacenter facility which will remain nameless we had repeated attempts and successes of theft. All the cases that were eventually resolved were shown to be IT workers, yet everything was blamed on the janitors who were "decontracted" over and over to the point where they had to pay people to travel in excess of 60 miles to clean the place.

Want to know how we caught one of the fuckers? Get some "Super Phosphorescent Pigments" make sure its NONTOXIC and coat thinly an item that has been stolen in the past and put it in a place where it is easily stolen with no video cameras. Install blacklight in a cubicle, wait till object is taken and invite people to come over and look at it with a blacklight poster. The thief is the one with the glowing hands.

Re:Foreign Invasion?

[linzeal]

The problem was manifold. The managers did not want to spend money on another security guard and employees rebelled at the thought of losing their "privacy" to security cameras. The only major breach of security could of been prevented with a 60 year old physical security guard when 6 arab men almost made off with a M40. The thing was 10 feet from the door when the person monitoring the cameras finnaly wised up and realized they were not supposed to be there. Only then did we get physical security after 9:00pm (when you need it most).

Using Missile Silos

[virg_mattes]

> I actually prefer Missile silos for ulitmate security.

Assuming you mean reusing old missle silos, it's a bad idea, for several reasons.

1.) The old silos were not designed to handle the electrical load that a datacenter requires.
2.) Missile silos are designed to protect against nuclear strike, but not much else. Foot soldiers would make short work of such facilities. Think heavier-than-air tear gas or burning jet fuel if you don't know why.
3.) Missile silos are generally full of asbestos and other nasty stuff that would be very costly to remove.
4.) Most missile silos have water leakage problems. This wasn't much of an issue when the only thing that got wet was the tail of the rocket booster, but computers are understandably less durable in such circumstances.
5.) Data connectivity was a non-concern then (they only needed a telephone, and then only until nuclear war began), so getting them wired would be prohibitive. Just about the only answer is satellite link, but that's not secure from destruction from the air.
6.) Missile silos were not siege-ready; that is, they didn't have weeks of supplies in case they were locked in. The assumption was that by the time they had a problem with supplies, the missile would have already launched.

Virg