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The New Data Center Capital of America

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-look dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "Move over Silicon Valley, here comes... Buffalo. Where the weather might actually be a big advantage. The recent opening of Yahoo's state-of-the-art data center, which uses the region's cooler climate and a high-tech 'chicken coop' design to dramatically lower energy costs is getting a lot of attention in the industry."

4 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Buffalo, New York by catbutt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Buffalo NY has over 250,000 population. The next highest I can find is about 4000.

    So I'm confused as to why you think anyone would be confused.

  2. They don't have NIAGARA FALLS though by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    So, per my subject-line above? Yes folks: We "upstate N.Y.'ers" can thank the GREAT Nikola Tesla for his creation of the Niagara Falls power turbine system (sends power as far as to NY City too, afaik/iirc)...

    That cheap power? It was "part of the package" they used to attract YAHOO & others, along with tax incentives & plenty of cheap land: CHEAP electrical power via "hydro-power"!!!

    APK

  3. Yeah, right. by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    First off, where did they get that picture of a bunch of mini-tower machines on steel shelving, each with one Ethernet cable, one power cord, and one console connection, sitting on raised floor? That looks like clip art of some data center circa 1998. Here's the actual Yahoo data center in Lockport, which, as you'd expect, is a big farm of 1U rackmounts. The "chicken coop" design is simply a low-cost prefabricated metal building with lots of ventilation grills. Looks like something ordered out of the Butler Buildings catalog.

    Yahoo got $9 million in grants and 10 years of no taxes for this. Yet it will employ only 125 people. Probably less, once it's running.

    Lockport is desperate. The big employer in town, Delphi Harrison Thermal Systems (formerly Harrison Radiator) had 6000 employees a decade ago. Now it has 2100, and has been threatened with closure several times.

  4. Re:Buffalo has good ping times by inode_buddha · · Score: 3, Informative

    Did you know that some MAJOR fiber runs through this area? One of the original ARPAnet backbones runs directly under Transit Rd. in Lockport en route to UB where they are doing a lot of human genome crunching. UB was one of the original 5 ARPAnet sites. In Buffalo itself, the financial services and medical sectors are boming, along with insurance. There's *plenty* of IT and internet here. Most of my packets go through there and then get zinged out to NYC via Rochester. They go from Rochester down to Washington, and make a round trip from there.

    --
    C|N>K