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Iceland's Data Center Push Finally Gets Traction
miller60 writes "Iceland is poised for the completion of its first major international data center project, after years of marketing itself as a potential data center mecca. Iceland offers an ample supply of geothermal energy and an ideal environment for fresh air cooling, but its ambitions were slowed by the global financial collapse. But now the huge UK charity Wellcome Trust has provided funding to complete a new data center in a former NATO facility in Keflavik."
What is the bandwith to iceland anyways?
A call center that I worked at before I became a developer (Convergys) just closed in my old hometown. My warning to Iceland is to be cautious: there is no loyalty in the call center industry. Sure this is good now and will help the economy but a lot of good it will do in the long run if they close down in four years.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
Wikileaks has a proposal to get a bunch of different free-speech, safe-harbor, journalist-protection style legislation through Iceland so as to both spur this kind of development, as well as provide a political safe-haven for data. Apparently it has caught on pretty well locally, and with a small population it's not particularly difficult to get such legislation passed on short notice.
http://www.wikileaks.org/
Good timing with the debt issue climaxing.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
It's oh so still
You're all alone
And so peaceful until...
Your site gets Slashdotted
It wasn't that long ago that Iceland's only internet access line went via a Scottish high-street that was getting dug up repeatedly, with the inevitable consequences:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/28/iceland_without_broadband/
Do you have a need for datacenters? We do and I frankly could care less if our datacenters are located in the US and Iceland is an attractive location for the reason mentioned in the article. Geothermal power is plentiful and the climate keeps the cooling costs down, but there are some other factors to consider. Bandwidth is one, another is how much extra does it cost to design a facility to be more resistant to earthquakes as the vulcanization that offers those benefits of abundant geothermal power also means there is seismic instability.
There are other factors as well. Iceland has a small population. Do they have the local expertise? If not, how hard is it to get residency permits for foreign workers. What are the other associated tax laws and other legal differences in the area. Do they have different data laws than here in the US? Do these costs off set the energy cost savings?
I've been to Iceland a couple times to visit friends and like it there. They are used to constructing buildings to withstand earthquakes and they have an educated work force and middle of the rung when it comes to tax and other expenses. Our only huge concern I know was looking at the size of the population and wondering how many people in the entire country are familiar with Teradata. If not, we'd need to relocate a couple people at least for 3 - 5 years.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
How soon until Laki blows again?
I see geothermal power as a bit of a trade off, especially for IT needs; you get a nice sustainable power source, but you're probably in an area where the activity could just as soon destroy your data as well as power it. Then again, if you hosted your Data Center in Iceland, you could probably afford to have backups in another country far, far away from any 'event'.
This has been on the cards for about two years now. Construction at the site stopped last month because politicians wouldn't dare go on with the project because of public opposition. One of the top stakeholders in Verne Global is one Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson, former owner of failed bank Landsbanki, whose high-interest Icesave savings accounts failed spectacularly and have kicked off the biggest firestorm in the republics' short history. Also, the bandwidth is not a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Connect (goes to US/CANADA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DANICE (goes to EU) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARICE-1 (goes to EU) These are the fiber cables we have. As you can read, we have lots of unlit fiber there.
It was called a data haven and it was in a different country, but Iceland seems to be as good a place as any to build one.
Right now? If you're looking to business as anything other than a bank/investment firm, white slavery operation or kiddie porn ring in Iceland, the answer to just about any request is going to be 'yes'. It's a great time for businesses to extract concessions from Iceland's govt.
I prefer my data-center to be further away from active volcanoes.
"Bandwidth is one, another is how much extra does it cost to design a facility to be more resistant to earthquakes as the vulcanization that offers those benefits of abundant geothermal power also means there is seismic instability." While a perfectly legitimate concern, bandwidth is not a problem. Neither is the seismic activity. Any serious seismic activity is well mapped out and building for it hasn't been a problem since we crawled out of the caves (which admittedly was only around 1900). In my opinion, the earthquakes are outright fun, and we know well where the earthquake danger zones are. Start worrying if you hear that they want to build it around Selfoss. ;)
I'm born raised in Iceland but currently live in Canada and I've spent a year in Finland, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the tech guru population per capita in Iceland is drastically higher than in either one of those. Even though the Finns are generally geeks... and I mean that in a good way obviously. Frankly, I think lack of geek skills in Iceland are not a problem for this particular project, and besides, the worst case scenario is that it won't be as monstrously huge as otherwise.
Of course I'm biased, I can only promise you that I'd tell you if I thought it were a problem.
I suppose the biggest problem would be the controversy over the energy it would require. Even though we are extremely lucky for how cheap electricity is in Iceland, there is also the counter-view that nature is to be preserved and therefore not exploited... even though it's the most nature-friendly way of producing electricity imaginable... okay, let's not get into politics. ;)
Honestly, I think that would be the biggest problem. Dealing with the politics.
Also I have to add... foreign money is worth a lot in Iceland now, and will for quite a while (decades). It's one of the most serious economic problems facing Iceland, the low value of the currency. It's terrible for the Icelandic population of course, but it means that labour is dirt cheap if you have foreign currency. Odds are you'd get much better bang for the buck.
Especially since Iceland is essentially bankrupt. Projects like this will help get its economy on the way to recovery, and hopefully accomplish great things for the infrastructure of the internet as well. Particularly if the safe-harbor legislation gets... through...
Woah. I just realized:
Does this mean we can refer to Iceland as Kinakuta now?
the wikileaks guys really want this, too.
the following video is a recording of a very interesting talk by Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt (wikileaks) at the chaos communication congress (here be dragons) in berlin between the years.
http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/26C3/mp4/26c3-3567-en-wikileaks_release_10.mp4
http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/26C3/mp4/26c3-3567-en-wikileaks_release_10.mp4.torrent
...of a floating ice floe. The latency might be large, but it will definitely outperform a Volkswagen.
Do you have a need for datacenters? We do and I frankly could care less if our datacenters are located in the US and Iceland is an attractive location for the reason mentioned in the article.
You might not care where your data is hosted, but some people do care about the legislation around it and the dangers associated with that.
Kinakuta!
According to the Wikileaks 1.0 presentation Iceland could pass a bill which will provide a last resort for information which is suppressed in other European countries (currently on the Wikileaks website with a call for donations).
...they would put the data center in GREENland.
Harharharharhar. Sigh.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The Wellcome Trust are a huge biomedical research charity. I would imagine that they are looking for processing power(think folding@home type projects) rather than the ability to serve up millions of webpages. If so bandwidth will be less of a concern than cheap reliable power and cooling. Iceland is looking to join the European Union so their Data Protection legislation is probably similar to rest of the EU's.
This has been on the cards for about two years now.
"In the cards" refers to something that is fated to happen, as in Tarot cards. "On the table" refers to a proposal.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
As far as earthquakes go, consider how many folks host at or near One Wilshire (Los Angeles) or the Silicon Valley.
Volcano's are another concern though. You can build a good building that can be shaken pretty hard, but I don't think there's a building yet that can really handle direct contact with a lava flow.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
It seems like the regions of the world where electricity-hungry aluminum production has centered would do well with data centers. Quebec is also endowed with plentiful hydroelectric electricity, ample cooling capacity, local expertise, and most importantly, proximity to large markets. I almost wonder why i don't hear more about data center hosting in Quebec, given the natural advantages
now we have a real excuse to spend 6-months indoors. By 2020 all good hackers will live in Iceland :)
A friend of mine worked on an earlier attempt to locate a data center in Iceland. They mapped out a place somewhere on the west side that they believed to be seismically stable.
Volcanoes are scary though. You can build miles away from them and still get your HVAC clogged if the wind blows ash your way.
Dear Iceland, "your government" has allowed institutions in your nation (and elsewhere) to claim that "debt is output" and that speculation constitutes GDP. That's a willful, knowing lie.
Nobody should trust the stability of Iceland at all let alone the ability to keep data safe and keep it available through emergencies, "your government" is already milking you for this.
"Yeah, I think it's frozen"
I suspect that Iceland will provide a first rate service. Their climate makes indoor activities and studies much more of a good idea than Miami Beach. It is somewhat like Harvard being in Boston. So much of the year is too cold to do much anything other than study.
We finally have someplace to host all those Björk MP3s.
Have gnu, will travel.
It keeps the hot side hot and the cold side cold.
sigh... I'm old.
I hope that this datacenters can take earthquakes, as they are building them on top of active seismic zone on the Reykjanes. But then there is also the volcano problem and the ash that can happen when a volcano eruption is taking place.
Now I am wondering if CCP is getting their servers back to Iceland instead of the UK
Banks that were guaranteed by the Icelandic government, which then tried to weasel out of its obligations.
I didn't hear any of you complaining when the money was all rolling in.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm born raised in Iceland but currently live in Canada and I've spent a year in Finland, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the tech guru population per capita in Iceland is drastically higher than in either one of those. Even though the Finns are generally geeks... and I mean that in a good way obviously.
As a Finnish geek... I don't know whether to feel insulted or flattered.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
If you're looking to business as anything other than a bank/investment firm, white slavery operation or kiddie porn ring in Iceland, the answer to just about any request is going to be 'yes'.
So, we can get government concessions if we only trade black slaves?
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You can build a good building that can be shaken pretty hard, but I don't think there's a building yet that can really handle direct contact with a lava flow.
On the other hand, if there's a glacier on the other side then the Peltier effect would power your data center for a long time...
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That depends on your definition of a "long time" I guess. It'd probably be measured in milliseconds. :)
For some reason, it makes me remember the old McDonald's Big Mac ad, keeping the hot side hot, and the cold side cold. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
No, in point of fact, but there's no good business model for that in Iceland to begin with. After abducting all six of the black folks they've got, the company would be out of business.