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Databases In Caves? A Unique Google Fiber Bid

Posted by Soulskill on from the sysadmins-plus-bats-equals-fun dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Plenty of cities have submitted bids for the Google Fiber project, with most of their bids being centered around the attributes that could describe many communities. Yet one small midwestern town, with much less fanfare than the metropolitan bids, provided an unusual proposition for Google in their likely quixotic nomination. Quincy, IL, has an extensive series of underground caverns that could provide year-round temperature control, dedicated hydroelectric power, and security in the case of a terrorist attack."

124 comments

  1. Makes sense by sys.stdout.write · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sys admins pretty much live in caves already, right?

    1. Re:Makes sense by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey!

      It's called a LAIR.

    2. Re:Makes sense by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Funny

      No. Dragons live in lairs. And they guard treasures.

      Batman lives in a cave.

      If you're a system administrator in Quincy, Illinois and you have a black car, you're already on the path of becoming a super-hero!

    3. Re:Makes sense by Dekker3D · · Score: 2, Funny

      and a sysadmin's servers aren't his own little treasure? i could swear i've heard one call his "his precioussss..."

    4. Re:Makes sense by L1feless · · Score: 1

      and just think when you have a system outage you can make cardboard cut-outs....ZAP! BAM! and ZOMG! Further more Google will already be duking it out with the Penguin come CromeOS

  2. Carthage, MO has that as well by Nimey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Big former limestone quarry with a bunch of underground storage. Town has its own electric utility too.

    --
    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem
    1. Re:Carthage, MO has that as well by sconeu · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, but it's not worth it, because everyone knows it'll all be plowed under and salted when the Romans invade.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:Carthage, MO has that as well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Springfield, MO also has caves.. .. with a data center/ISP already (SpringNET), we already have metro fiber (I can get 100mbs to the cave, and 20 mbs out of the city from my desk).

      We have 3 collages, 5 "religious" collages, and like 6 junior collages/nursing schools..

      Google would only have to work with one entity, City Utilities, who already have right of way to run more fibre.

      We threw our name in for the Google fibre too..

    3. Re:Carthage, MO has that as well by quantumplacet · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      that's a lot of collages, though I'd rather not receive medical treatment from a nurse who's education came from a small collage...

    4. Re:Carthage, MO has that as well by Mr+Z · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, full size picture books are much better than small collages, that way you get to see the detail in addition to the big picture.

      --
      Program Intellivision!
  3. My Town Put A Bid In.... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 4, Funny

    We may not have extensive, cool underground caves, but we do have a nearly unlimited resource of young college-aged girls in warm sunny California weather right on the beach with an advanced technical university that can turn out underpaid interns by the droves. So suck it Quincy. =P

    --
    Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
    1. Re:My Town Put A Bid In.... by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Your newsletter, I WANTS!

    2. Re:My Town Put A Bid In.... by bananaquackmoo · · Score: 1

      You forgot to mention SLO's numerous bars and awesome food! Wine country nearby, hiking and beaches, halfway between LA and SF...

    3. Re:My Town Put A Bid In.... by gawaino · · Score: 0

      ... and near a major earthquake fault, high taxation

    4. Re:My Town Put A Bid In.... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 2, Funny

      And to top it all off one of California's only nuclear power plants operating right in that high earthquake zone! I can't think of a better paradise frankly. Plenty of circus and wine for the locals, and if something fundamental gets fubarred we have a nice messy nuclear explosion to cover it all up*. Ah the promised land. =)

      *: So as to not lose geek cred, I do realize that Diablo Canyon will not be exploding anytime soon and that, in the event of an actual reactor issue, an explosion will not be the resultant phenomenon. For humor purposes, however, I enjoy pointing out the delicious absurdity of building a nuclear power plant near a fault line.

      --
      Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
    5. Re:My Town Put A Bid In.... by no1home · · Score: 1

      Damn! I KNEW I should've gone to SLO-Poly instead of Pomona!

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      Persecutors will be violated!
    6. Re:My Town Put A Bid In.... by coolgeek · · Score: 1

      C'mon now, you know you should have gone anywhere but Pomona.

      --

      cat /dev/null >sig
  4. What about the mole people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or are you going to hire them as network engineers? They seem to have a lot in common... fear of sunlight, refusal to shave, grumpiness...

    1. Re:What about the mole people? by Cheerio+Boy · · Score: 1

      Or are you going to hire them as network engineers? They seem to have a lot in common... fear of sunlight, refusal to shave, grumpiness...

      Dude. I live in Northwestern Illinois and I would gladly move to Quincy, IL to do admin stuff in a giant cave. :-)

      Besides the obviousness of not having to seriously travel for support Quincy has fairly inexpensive real estate with actual space around it.

      Now to figure out how to deal with being upside-down on that pesky mortgage....

      --

      "Bah!" - Dogbert
    2. Re:What about the mole people? by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      I'd welcome you. I live in Quincy, and I can tell you that much of the underground caverns mentioned are huge chambers of a gypsum mine. The chambers that have been fully mined are run by a company called Underground Warehouses which is a division of the processed mineral products company (Huber) that runs the mine.

      These chambers are big enough that years ago when I briefly worked as a temp, we were parking inside them and the semis that made pickups and deliveries pulled up to docks inside them.

      Quincy's working on getting gravity-propelled hydroelectric turbines installed on two of the lock and dam installations on the Mississippi.

      The city's on top of the bluffs, and no more than a few blocks and some outlying areas were flooded in 1993, 1997, or 2008. Some roads into and out of town close in major floods, though, and alternate routes need to be found. The mines are along one of the routes that closes from one end for a few weeks once every few years.

      It's also a fairly well-to-do town for its size. At about 45,000 people, it's not huge, but it is the biggest town in any direction for about 100 miles. It's on a spur of interstate highway, it has rail access, an airport with daily flights to St. Louis, a public bus system, taxi service, and a point-to-point van service. A few fairly major companies are located in town, too: Titan International (the largest off-road tire and wheel manufacturer in the US), Knapheide (makes of utility beds for trucks), Harris Broadcasting (makers of digital and analog broadcasting equipment for TV and radio stations), Hollister-Whitney (one of the few makers of the working parts pf elevators, although the installing company is usually the name you see on the inside of the carriage), and a large facility for Gardner Denver (makers of air pumps, compressors, and blowers). I'm sure they'd love some high-speed fiber goodness as much as the residential customers.

      Now, I'm not the submitter of the original story. I just happen to live in Quincy right now and would love for Google to come in and upset the AT&T/Comcast apple cart.

    3. Re:What about the mole people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A taxi van? You guys are fucking rocking over there.

  5. Fantasic Idea! by Kagato · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't know if they will be google fiber finalist, but they make a very compelling argument for being a data center. Kudos for using the competition as a backdoor into media spotlight.

    1. Re:Fantasic Idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Proponents of underground houses cite the thermal properties of their structures as a benefit. NOT because it provides infinite cooling, but because the earth acts as a capacitor. The cave will be packed from floor to ceiling with servers, and the heat will go into the surrounding earth and stay there. After two months the limestone surrounding the data center will approach the heat capacity - they'll have to shutdown, and the surrounding rock will be radiating heat for a month.

    2. Re:Fantasic Idea! by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      Considering they have rooms the size of whole warehouses cooled to as low as 28 F for frozen meat handling to which semis pull up to underground, I doubt the underground operators in Quincy have much problem with managing heat.

  6. and... by qoncept · · Score: 1

    ..and my down may not have extensive, cool, secure areas for servers, but we need it as badly as anyone I've ever heard of. I'm paying $110 a month for 1mbps SDSL.

    --
    Whale
  7. no, caves suck by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1. they are hard to get to

    2. they are hard to get supplies to and build in

    3. they flood

    4. they have air quality issues

    5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them, and then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface

    the idea of servers in caves sucks

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:no, caves suck by FooAtWFU · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was reading somewhere about the London Underground - how, when it opened, it was really nice and cool in the tunnels and everyone enjoyed a break from the summer heat... but a century of operations has heated the very bedrock, and now it's sweltering down there, and they're trying to figure out ways to effectively do air-conditioning in stations and on trains ... which can be tricky, since some of the tubes are so tight that there's not really anywhere for the waste heat to go. (They were talking about having the trains make blocks of ice while in other segments, and letting those melt while they're in the narrow under-the-river tubes).

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    2. Re:no, caves suck by BoRegardless · · Score: 1

      1. they are hard to get to: no, they drive trucks into those types of caves, if I am not mistaken (or have HUGE elevators)

      2. they are hard to get supplies to and build in: Not with a roadway, and you don't have to build "buildings" as such.

      3. they flood: If they did, Quincy wouldn't put up the choice to Google.

      4. they have air quality issues: Dust control is needed on the surface for data centers, too, if you haven't noticed.

      5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them: Heat exchanger systems are used in every data center and a specific system would be designed for the caves. My guess is they would dump heat to pipes drilled in the limestone to take heat to distant distributed parts of the limestone bed.

    3. Re:no, caves suck by qoncept · · Score: 1

      5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them, and then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface

      How do you figure? Unless you're talking about the logistical complications (your point #2), I don't see any reason.

      --
      Whale
    4. Re:no, caves suck by Swervin · · Score: 2, Informative

      1. they are hard to get to

      2. they are hard to get supplies to and build in

      3. they flood

      4. they have air quality issues

      5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them, and then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface

      the idea of servers in caves sucks

      1. Having seen these caves first hand, I know for a fact that a good many of them can be driven into directly, doesn't get much easier to get to than that.

      2. (See 1)

      3. Haven't seen or heard of much flooding in these.

      4. The ones I've driven past have massive ventilation fans outside, and can handle removing vehicle exhaust. What are you doing to the air quality in there that's worse than exhaust? Burrito day?

      5. Not sure on 5, but they do manage to store refrigerated goods in them, as another poster points out. I'd handle this by drilling wells into the floor of the cave and circulating water if the cooling wasn't sufficient.

    5. Re:no, caves suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      1) Believe it or not, roads are allowed to lead to caves.

      2) Believe it or not, roads are allowed to lead INTO caves.

      3) Really? Every cave in the world floods?

      4) What air quality issues?

      5) Anything more then conjecture?

      This list sounds like the typical I'm-13-years-old-and-know-how-to-use-a-computer-so-I-think-I-know-everything bullshit that normally fills /.

    6. Re:no, caves suck by Tmack · · Score: 1

      1. they are hard to get to

      2. they are hard to get supplies to and build in

      3. they flood

      4. they have air quality issues

      5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them, and then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface

      the idea of servers in caves sucks

      4 is questionable, most caves have good air flow (depends on your local though). Thermal and pressure differences between entrances create it (thermometric or barometric flows)

      Other reasons not to put this type of things in caves:

      * Caves are protected environments in most states
      * Caves are commonly roosts for bats, which are having a hard enough time with WNS right now, let alone people intent on killing them
      * Caves typically do not follow city planning, they go where they want to, following seams and faults in the rock
      * Along with the flooding, they tend to have very high humidity (though there are dry caves too)

      Im thinking these are more like mine tunnels or something..

      -T

      --
      Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
    7. Re:no, caves suck by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hmm... Then why are companies like Iron Mountain building out LARGE datacenters in caves?

      (In most cases, former mines/quarries.)

      1) Not caves large enough to drive vehicles in - many mines meet this criteria
      2) Same answer as 1 for supplies, for 2 - in many cases they were already "built" for previous purposes (usually, getting valuable materials out of the ground)
      3) Not if they're above the water table - many are. Iron Mountain's is, and apparently they're planning on using a nearby underground lake for cooling soon.
      4) Not if built/designed correctly.
      5) Iron Mountain and the like would prefer to disagree with you on that.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    8. Re:no, caves suck by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 1

      Sounds like a major geothermal heat pump project in the making, cooling the bedroom with the surrounding ocean/river water.

    9. Re:no, caves suck by lena_10326 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Obviously these are man made caves. Not naturally formed ones carved by water. Man made caves tend to follow grid patterns because they are planned with the thought in mind to rent the space out. They will leave massive walls and pillars spaced out every 50 feet or so.

      Also, caves with heavy usage are not going to be friendly to bats, which don't like being disturbed by 18 wheelers driving past every 20 minutes.

      --
      Camping on quad since 1996.
    10. Re:no, caves suck by Angst+Badger · · Score: 1

      3. they flood

      Depends on the cave. Of course, if you're going to build a dam a scant three miles away and vastly raise the water table, well, it's probably going to be a concern with this cave.

      --
      Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
    11. Re:no, caves suck by T+Murphy · · Score: 3, Funny

      You must be missing something. The bad guys in spy movies often put their secret bases in caves, complete with big computers with lots of unnecessary buttons and screens. Super villains know what they are doing, so I'm sure caves are an excellent choice.

      --
      My webcomic
    12. Re:no, caves suck by Swervin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      3. they flood

      Depends on the cave. Of course, if you're going to build a dam a scant three miles away and vastly raise the water table, well, it's probably going to be a concern with this cave.

      Dam is already there, they're just adding a hydro electric plant to it. Lock and Dam 21

    13. Re:no, caves suck by evilviper · · Score: 1

      5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them, and then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface

      Indeed. The term is "thermal mass". It was being trumpeted for a good long time as "green" since it helps to average-out the temperatures in homes, offices, etc. Problem is, with extended hot or cold weather, you need active heating/cooling, and a huge amount at that, because of all the thermal mass you now need to heat/cool.

      This was solved a long time ago, however, by having the thermal mass attached by pipes, instead of as directly part of the building. Previously, that was in the form of "solar ponds" which you can choose to leave "outside" if they will not provide a benefit. More recently, the superior option is water or ground-source heat-pumps, which can benefit from the thermal mass of the ground even if the ground is hotter/colder than you would prefer to be, and can be shut off at any time should the air temperature be more comfortable than ground...

      --
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    14. Re:no, caves suck by ErikLalande · · Score: 3, Interesting

      These caves don't flood. Monster food companies use them to store food in, and they are a mile from the river.

    15. Re:no, caves suck by toastar · · Score: 0

      3) Really? Every cave in the world floods?

      Do you know how caves like this form? The dirt usually doesn't just magically disappear something has to take it away.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst_topography

    16. Re:no, caves suck by toastar · · Score: 1

      Hmm... Then why are companies like Iron Mountain building out LARGE datacenters in caves?

      (In most cases, former mines/quarries.)

      1) Not caves large enough to drive vehicles in - many mines meet this criteria
      2) Same answer as 1 for supplies, for 2 - in many cases they were already "built" for previous purposes (usually, getting valuable materials out of the ground)
      3) Not if they're above the water table - many are. Iron Mountain's is, and apparently they're planning on using a nearby underground lake for cooling soon.
      4) Not if built/designed correctly.
      5) Iron Mountain and the like would prefer to disagree with you on that.

      LAWL! I had to do the recovery on several tapes that were stored with iron mountain after katrina.

    17. Re:no, caves suck by Tmack · · Score: 1, Redundant

      Obviously these are man made caves. Not naturally formed ones carved by water.

      Then it should be called such, rather than just cave, as I stated. The word Cave by itself is defined as a NATURAL space formed by natural processes.

      Pedantic, yes, but if you told a bunch of geologists you are going to run a datacenter in a cave you would get a bunch of strange looks from them if you didnt say "man made" first.

      -Tm
      nss#45759

      --
      Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
    18. Re:no, caves suck by Tmack · · Score: 1

      Hmm... Then why are companies like Iron Mountain building out LARGE datacenters in caves?

      (In most cases, former mines/quarries.)

      1) Not caves large enough to drive vehicles in - many mines meet this criteria

      Those are mines or tunnels, not caves. If they insist on calling it a cave, they should specify "man made" cave or risk getting the NSS, ACC, USGS, USFWS and a few other organizations on their ass

      ... 3) Not if they're above the water table - many are. Iron Mountain's is, and apparently they're planning on using a nearby underground lake for cooling soon.

      Natural caves are typically formed by running water, they are nature's storm drains. You dont have to be below a water table for rainwater to fill a cave, mine or other hole in the ground. Water follows gravity, which typically goes down, and since holes in the ground generally go down to stay underground, water tends to follow. If the exit isnt large enough, it will fill the hole. How do you think the underground lake formed? I hope they are going through the EPA and USGS and other orgs to get approval on using that lake, as its probably the source for well water for miles around, and could have consequences if not done correctly. Karst Pollution is serious business, and Illinois a notable karst region.

      4) Not if built/designed correctly. 5) Iron Mountain and the like would prefer to disagree with you on that.

      Again, see response to item 1.

      -Tm
      nss#45759

      --
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    19. Re:no, caves suck by anotherone · · Score: 2, Informative

      They're manmade caves made from limestone mining.

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    20. Re:no, caves suck by Brianwa · · Score: 1

      I once knew a guy who worked for a real estate company that sold similar caves. IIRC they were also mines that were no longer being used. A common use for these caves is to store cheese while it ages -- they're the perfect temperature and cheese companies can save lots of money in electricity costs.

      I didn't believe him at first when he told me with a straight face that he used to evaluate and sell cheese caves.

    21. Re:no, caves suck by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      Cooling the bedroom is usually the last thing most couples want.

    22. Re:no, caves suck by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 2, Funny

      The dirt usually doesn't just magically disappear something has to take it away.

      Shovels in this case.

    23. Re:no, caves suck by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      The word Cave by itself is defined as a NATURAL space formed by natural processes.

      I can assure that there is nothing natural about CmdrTaco's bedroom.

    24. Re:no, caves suck by OzRoy · · Score: 1

      That is really interesting.

      I think it would be a different situation here though. In London the City itself is probably acting as insulation preventing the heat from the tunnels escaping; no one likes being cold, so all the building have heating.

      In this situation the mountain would lose heat to the surrounding atmosphere much more readily.

    25. Re:no, caves suck by treeves · · Score: 1

      I want it cooler, she wants it warmer. Of course, I'm talking about *temperature*, not speaking euphemistically.

      --
      ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
    26. Re:no, caves suck by arem-aref · · Score: 0

      might wanna do a little more research, i'm from quincy, these caves are used for lotsa things, and they're easy to get to, i've never known them to flood, they're ventilated to above ground, they're really large(+5 miles horizontal), and there is beer and other food stored there!

    27. Re:no, caves suck by reidrhollander · · Score: 1

      No, none of these are relevant. i grew up in Quincy and the "caves' are old limestone quarries. They have a network of roads like an underground city and are in fact used for storage by many regional food and bevarage companies because of the climate as well as long erm document storage because of the safety factor. Herr is more info. http://www.uwi.org/default.htm

    28. Re:no, caves suck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. they are hard to get to

      2. they are hard to get supplies to and build in

      3. they flood

      4. they have air quality issues

      5. and they ARE cool... until you put a bunch of servers in them, and then they heat up, and STAY hot, and are harder to cool than on the surface

      the idea of servers in caves sucks

      That's what I keep telling those idiots in Cheyenne Mountain, but they don't listen to me! Maybe you can talk some sense into them. Don't forget to mention the grues.

    29. Re:no, caves suck by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      You don't quite understand. These are not little natural caves carved by streams. They are underground warehouses with huge ventilation already in place, underground parking for employees, and whole rooms the size of a CVS or Walgreens temperature controlled for dry storage warehouses or frozen goods storage and handling. They know how to ventilate the place just fine, or their employees would be dead from car and semi exhaust.

    30. Re:no, caves suck by mr_mischief · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here are some specifics on the Underground Warehouses facilities in Quincy, IL:

      1. It has its own traffic light

      2. semi trucks haul loads in and out of the existing warehouse

      3. not in 1993, 1997, or 2008 did the underground warehouses flood, although Illinois Route 57 was closed getting to them from one direction requiring a detour.

      4. Many of the employees park their cars inside the caverns, trucks run in and out, materials are still mined in parts of the complex, and the break room where employees eat is built inside. It's dusty, but the ventilation is good.

      5. There are temperature controlled sections in the warehouses already, including a huge frozen food handling area. The whole room is below freezing, workers, palette storage, inspection conveyors, and all. The room is the size of a major-chain pharmacy like CVS. If it wasn't for equipment, you could play soccer in the frozen section, and on a regulation-sized field.

      Back in the day, I worked a few weeks in the frozen foods section as a temp. These places are massive. You can work all day in one chamber and never hear what's going on in the others.

    31. Re:no, caves suck by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      In this case, they are mines. Gypsum and other minerals are taken out to be processed into products, and the chambers left behind are warehouses, offices, docks, and employee parking lots (yes, underground).

    32. Re:no, caves suck by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      These are active mines, but the active parts are so far away from the warehouse rooms that the employees in the warehouses don't hear the mining. I was a temp in the warehouse portion of the very facility back in 1995 or so. Our section required hardhats because we had block walls but used the old mine chamber's ceiling as-is. The lunch rooms, offices, and parts of the warehouse were of course not hard-hat areas because there were structures built accordingly inside the chambers.

    33. Re:no, caves suck by pspahn · · Score: 1

      There are companies feeding monsters now? What happened to monstrous self-reliance?

      This country is so entitled.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    34. Re:no, caves suck by Therefore+I+am · · Score: 1

      Besides, anybody with half an eye on the future would know that geostationary Data Centres would have no cooling problems and no power problems. O.K. There would be some transit time issues but these could be worked around by classifying data and it's likely access requirements. Come on guys. We don't need this crud here. Put it into space where we can easily nudge it into the sun for clean decommissioning.

  8. They're Used by Industries too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Awesome... Quincy, IL is where I attended college at and I lived there for a good 5 years. The caves mentioned are even partially used for warehousing refrigerated goods and even has some industrial temperature control.

  9. brilliant idea! by unix_geek_512 · · Score: 1

    This is a great idea provided the area is geologically stable and there is little risk of flooding.

    Dispersing data centers over wide geographical areas is also advisable.

  10. Springfield Underground @ Springfield, MO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The entire city of Springfield, MO is already above a gigantic cave bigger than the whole above-ground city, and is ALREADY WIRED WITH FIBER. =)

  11. Be safe! by Seraphim_72 · · Score: 1

    Because when I think Quincy IL, I think TERRORIST ATTACK.

    --
    Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
    1. Re:Be safe! by Al+Dimond · · Score: 1

      Some other little town in rural Illinois nearly took down a big statue of Abraham Lincoln (probably in the early 'aughties) because they thought it was a terrorist risk. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed.

    2. Re:Be safe! by ErikLalande · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thats not the point. The point is that Quincy's underground data center would be a backup for Chicago, KC, or St Louis's if they ever got hit with a dirty bomb. The fact that its a cave just means that Google wouldn't have to invest millions of dollars to create a hardened data center, because it does that naturally.

    3. Re:Be safe! by Rogerborg · · Score: 1

      Terrorists, OK, but what are their plans for the Deep Crows?

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    4. Re:Be safe! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some other little town in rural Illinois nearly took down a big statue of Abraham Lincoln (probably in the early 'aughties) because they thought it was a terrorist risk. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed.

      Perhaps we could harness the power of their thermal-cranial cooling to keep the datacenter cooled.

    5. Re:Be safe! by Seraphim_72 · · Score: 1

      If any of those get hit hard enough with a dirty bomb to knock out their data centers, the last thing anyone is going to care about is their data being online.

      --
      Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
    6. Re:Be safe! by Anpheus · · Score: 1

      I will. My emails are important, I make sure each of them has the red exclamation mark and flag.

  12. Great white north... by grumpyman · · Score: 1

    I wonder if some of the northern cities/towns in Canada which has the infrastructure/connectivity may give them edge on cooling cost? There are technologies out there that can utilize external temperature.

    1. Re:Great white north... by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Actually almost anyplace with a dam would probably be a good spot for a data center. Frankly putting them in the day it's self may be brilliant.
      1. Lots of reliable power and no transmission loss.
      2. Easy cooling. Tap the cold water going into the turbine for cooling and release it down stream.
      3. Security. The dam probably is already a high security area so no extra would be needed.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Great white north... by nemasu · · Score: 1

      The northernmost city in North America with a metro population of over one million is Edmonton. June through August has an average temperature of about 22 Celsius (72 F), unless they wanted to go more north (there's not much up there), they're still going to need to have cooling in place for a few months at least. Granted, in the winter, all they would need to do is suck air from the outside.

      --
      I made an app! Shoutium
    3. Re:Great white north... by Nulifier · · Score: 1

      I live in Edmonton, not only would you be able to pull the cold air in from the outside in the winter, you would probably have to heat it too (it got below -40c this year).

    4. Re:Great white north... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are technologies out there that can utilize external temperature.

      These are called "windows."

  13. Wrong year by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    How quake proof are those caves? Because that is the most visible concern about anything this year in particular (even if is within average, it got a lot of visibility)..

  14. The internet isn't like a big truck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a series of caves.

  15. They also promise superfast indexing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They feature an exclusive cloud of spiders that is as fast as it is creepy.

  16. So easy by odin84gk · · Score: 1

    A caveAdmin could do it!

    1. Re:So easy by my_left_nut · · Score: 1

      +1 funny

  17. Hope this goes through by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I live pretty close to Quincy, IL, it's in the same Congressional district as me at least. So maybe I'll be able to get me a fiber connection soon after.

  18. Cryptonomicon anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon

    1. Re:Cryptonomicon anyone? by reverseengineer · · Score: 1

      Or much eariler, Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano (1952), where the giant computer EPICAC XIV resided in Carlsbad Caverns. I guess Google's servers won't require an army of workers to swap out vacuum tubes though.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
    2. Re:Cryptonomicon anyone? by bmearns · · Score: 1

      First thing I thought of, too.

      I forgot about Player Piano, though I think there was a super-computer-in-a-cave in Breakfast of Champions, too.

      --
      Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
  19. Whats next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whats next? Wormholes in mountains? .......

  20. Quicy, IL? by Theaetetus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, it's not a bad idea... Quincy, IL has three decent colleges nearby and a huge local technical population: two of the largest radio, television, and satellite transmitter manufacturers, Harris and Broadcast Electronics, are based in Quincy.

  21. Good idea but... by ae1294 · · Score: 1

    This would probably work out well if it wasn't for the hordes of man eating rats and re-animated skeletons that inhabit these caves.

    But I guess it would be pretty good security as long as the terrorists didn't happen to bring +1 war hammers and town portal scrolls along...

  22. Cave as a work environment by lena_10326 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've worked in the Kansas City caves and sat behind a desk on a computer for a while. It's fascinating for the first day but that ends quickly. The lack of sunlight and outdoor exposure really gets to drain on you week after week. Imagine getting up and going outside for some fresh air but when you go outside it's very dark, humid, claustrophobic, and the air is stale. It drives you nuts. Especially when you hear creaks and cracks all day in the dead of silence. I would not want to be an IT admin working in a cave.

    --
    Camping on quad since 1996.
    1. Re:Cave as a work environment by topcoder · · Score: 1

      Imagine getting up and going outside for some fresh air but when you go outside it's very dark, humid, claustrophobic, and the air is stale.

      Can you get me a job there?

    2. Re:Cave as a work environment by tsstahl · · Score: 1

      Spelunking around the office is cool until you have to go to the bathroom real bad--take everything you bring...

    3. Re:Cave as a work environment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I fail to see how this is different from your mom's basement.

    4. Re:Cave as a work environment by lymond01 · · Score: 1

      Gosh, it's Google. You don't think they'd have swimming pools, ping pong tables, oxygen bars...

    5. Re:Cave as a work environment by cynyr · · Score: 1

      so put the racks in the cave and the office outside at the entrance. best of both worlds.

      --
      All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
    6. Re:Cave as a work environment by eshbums · · Score: 2, Funny

      I've worked in the Kansas City caves and sat behind a desk on a computer for a while. It's fascinating for the first day but that ends quickly. The lack of sunlight and outdoor exposure really gets to drain on you week after week. Imagine getting up and going outside for some fresh air but when you go outside it's very dark, humid, claustrophobic, and the air is stale. It drives you nuts. Especially when you hear creaks and cracks all day in the dead of silence. I would not want to be an IT admin working in a cave.

      Did you type 4 8 15 16 23 42 over and over again during the course of your day?

    7. Re:Cave as a work environment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just so you know, only one out of the following two statements are true:

      1. They're going to lay the cables in the caves
      2. They're going to move the entire working population of Quincy down into the caves for the rest of their careers.

    8. Re:Cave as a work environment by lena_10326 · · Score: 1

      Of course you will not read this because you posted anonymouse.. but.. for the record.. you are an idiot. Hint: support systems; support engineers.

      --
      Camping on quad since 1996.
    9. Re:Cave as a work environment by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      There's already car parking for employees inside UW, and offices and break rooms, too.

    10. Re:Cave as a work environment by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      "I've worked in the Kansas City caves and sat behind a desk on a computer for a while. It's fascinating for the first day but that ends quickly. The lack of sunlight and outdoor exposure really gets to drain on you week after week. Imagine getting up and going outside for some fresh air but when you go outside it's very dark, humid, claustrophobic, and the air is stale. It drives you nuts. Especially when you hear creaks and cracks all day in the dead of silence. I would not want to be an IT admin working in a cave."

      Sounds like where I live in Alaska.

      The summer it is the opposite and the bright hot sun never goes away.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    11. Re:Cave as a work environment by lena_10326 · · Score: 1

      The caves are bigger than you realize. They are basically underground cities.

      --
      Camping on quad since 1996.
  23. Damn those Quincy Fools!!!! by jameskojiro · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Dear Captain-Commander,

    It was bad enough that they were breaking the balance between the soul re-incarnation cycle, but now they are wanting to build a datacenter in their secret underground cave. How is the Research and Development division supposed to keep up with that? It isn't like there is unlimited space to place to place a giant data center in the middle of the Seireitei. I should have killed that little punk Ishida when I had the chance. I guess now I am going to have to build the thing Heuco Mundo, which is fine, but running a data link from there to the World of the Living is such an enourmous pain the in neck. I guess I will have to pay those Quincys a little "research" visit.

    Signed,
    Mayuri Kurotsuchi

    --
    Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
  24. Utah's Granite Caves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Utah has used its extensive granite caves for storage - both hard copy and digital - for a very long time. It's a constant temperature year round, has low humidity, no water issues, and hasn't seen a big earthquake in a very long time. I've been told the caves are so deep they could even survive a nuclear attack.

  25. databases in caves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so are we gonna call this "caveSQL"?

    or was this supposed to be titled "Datacenters in caves"?

  26. What a dark, unpleasant place by jmitchel!jmitchel.co · · Score: 1

    What a dark, unpleasant place. Getting into the caves isn't so hard, because Quincy is situated on high bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. So access is probably pretty much straight in from the highway or something like it. Keeping the Mississippi out the next time it floods in a major way may be a bigger problem. Being in Quincy though... that's the biggest problem. The darkest two years of my life were my time there, trying to find something to do, trying to stay warm in my cavernous old house. Quincy is 100 miles from anywhere, and once you get anywhere you still have a couple hundred miles to get to anywhere you'd actually want to be.

    1. Re:What a dark, unpleasant place by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      Quincy didn't flood more than two blocks east of the river in 1993, 1997, or 2008. The Underground Warehouses facilities were open through all of those, although portions of IL 57 were closed demanding detours.

      St. Louis really is a nice town if you give it a chance. What are you, a Cubs fan? ;-)

    2. Re:What a dark, unpleasant place by jmitchel!jmitchel.co · · Score: 1

      Much like living in Quincy, rooting for the Cubs seemed like a good idea at one time. Frankly though I couldn't figure out how to give STL or Quincy a chance after trying, and didn't see much point giving Springfield or Peoria a chance, and the Quad Cities seemed not so much like a destination as a place I should have moved if I wanted to make the project less of a disaster.

  27. Somebody has to mention Captain Caveman by jsailor · · Score: 1

    http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/c/capcave.htm

  28. Uh, I think they missed something... by greenguy · · Score: 1

    Google Fiber is about connecting homes and businesses to the Internet.

    Not databases.

    --
    What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
    1. Re:Uh, I think they missed something... by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      These warehouses are run by, you guessed it, a business. The space could be used as a colocation facility if Google themselves didn't want to use it. However, Quincy currently is a terrible place to run a data center because of... lack of bandwidth. If bandwidth was fixed for residences and businesses, these old portions of the mines would make wonderful data centers for existing and new businesses.

  29. no, no, no by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    all supervillain cave headquarters have a rocket launchpad room

    all evil supervillains in b grade hollywood movies want to launch rockets at somebody from hidden rocket launch sites. whether syndrome in the incredibles, blofeld in you only live twice, rogue russians in vin diesel's xxx, whomever

    to cool down their ridiculously huge server complex then is a simple matter of opening the dome over the launch pad

    duh!

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  30. WEhere else by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    did you think they put their servers during the stone age?

  31. Re:no, caves suck. No, you do. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How nice to show the world your complete ignorance regarding caves, keep it up champ.

  32. They are good at hiding stuff like bin laden by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    They are good at hiding stuff like bin laden

  33. The Republic by ravenscar · · Score: 2, Funny

    This sounds like Plato's version of a server farm.

  34. "Underground Caverns"? by mad.frog · · Score: 1

    As opposed to those sorts of caverns that are above-ground?

  35. Has to be said... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    Tony Stark built a database in a CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS!

  36. Has to be said... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    Tony Stark built a database in a CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS!

  37. Batdatacentre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "To the Batdatacentre!" doesn't quite have the same oomph...

  38. The three most important things by cowbud · · Score: 1

    provide year-round temperature control, dedicated hydroelectric power, and security in the case of a terrorist attack."

  39. Tony Stark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What? No jokes about how Tony Stark SysAdmin'd this database IN A CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS!!

  40. and about 20 miles away... by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

    Just outside a town within commuting distance of Quincy, IL, a Hannibal, MO area hog farm has been harnessed as a possible source of crude oil replacement.

    They're testing processed hog excrement as a heavy crude replacement for asphalt. The actual test is in Eureka, MO, a St. Louis-area community home to Six Flags St. Louis.

  41. Springfield, Missouri has them too by Robotech_Master · · Score: 1

    Well, not "caves" per se, but we do have the Springfield Underground, an extensive system of underground limestone quarries, the mined-out parts of which have been converted into office, data hosting, warehousing, and manufacturing space. (Here's a video tour.)

    I've been in it. It's pretty impressive.

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
  42. Does Springfield, MO have them, too? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey? What about Springfield, Missouri? Don't they have some caves? Maybe Google should consider using Springfield, Missouri, they have caves. Springfield, Missouri has a lot of caves, too, so maybe they should be in the running. If Google is going to consider Quincy, IL, then they should also consider Springfield, MO, because they have a lot of caves, too. You know that Quincy, IL isn't the only place with caves? They should also consider Springfield, MO, because they have some very large caves, too. It's in Springfield, Missouri that the caves should be considered as a home for Google servers, because they have caves that are bigger than in Quincy, Illinois. So how about Springfield?

  43. DB's come with businesses (you're kidding)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Google Fiber is about connecting homes and businesses to the Internet.

    Not databases." - by greenguy (162630) on Friday April 16, @04:00PM (#31876238) Homepage

    greenguy, be straight about this - you're joking, right? I mean, lol, hey man... e.g. -> Email, for instance/example? It's really ALL basically "DB-Mail", & we ALL use that (for 1 thing). Gmail? Guaranteed it uses some sort of database alone... & that's GOOGLE, "to-the-max"!

    Also, then there's the word business, that you used man... what comes with businesses? Databases. Reports, receipts, records & all...

    (Eventually, if not immediately, that quite often means Access, MySQL, DB2, SQL Server, Oracle & the like (IF NOT "HOME-GROWN" even), if not eventually, in business & yes, online over the public internet actually happening campus to campus in businesses nation & if not worldwide, all the time (this is certain & plenty of examples of that much clearly exist)).

    APK

    P.S.=> Someone rate greenguy up as funny I suppose... because he had to have been kidding imo! apk