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Nuclear Bunker Houses World's Toughest Server Farm
Lanxon writes "Deep inside the Swiss Alps, a former nuclear bunker is now the ultimate hiding place for the world's most sensitive secrets — the Swiss Fort Knox. In a lengthy feature, Wired gains access to the server farm designed to survive a full-scale military attack. From the article: 'As we punch our codes at the checkpoint, the yellow door opens into what looks like a city of server towers, their green LEDs flickering as a technician in a white jumpsuit runs diagnostic checks. [Later], we are in a dimly lit tunnel next to what looks like a metal oven door carved into the side of the rock. "These are expansion rooms in case you have an atomic explosion outside," Christoph Oschwald, a retired Swiss paratrooper turned contractor, says. The thinking behind the rooms, he explains, is that if there were a nuclear explosion, the rush of high-pressure air would fill them through vents in the opposite side. Then, the vents would snap shut, trapping the air before it had a chance of damaging the fortress. "There is a lot of protection you can't see," he says. We stroll past an intricate network of insulated pipelines that carry water up from the underground glacial lake to the cooling system.'"
Reminds me of the Simpson's episode, where Mr. Burns and Smithers go through a series of complex doors to get to the control room, just to discover that someone left the BACK DOOR open, a screen door, flapping in the breeze. Proverbial "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link".
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Proper availability is generally achieved through redundancy, not silly stunts like this.
They also offer online backup at the same location: http://www.mount10.ch/english/index.html
Their web design sucks, though.
I imagine the courier thing is for exceedingly sensitive information.