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.'"

Comments

Hmmm

[WrongSizeGlass]

I guess with all this safety and protection some guy named Homer from Springfield need not apply?

Is the infrastructure getting data to/from these servers going to withstand a nuclear blast? Do the servers run Linux?? Does anyone know if their "Apocalypse Level" technical support package is for the hosting customer only or will they extend it to site subscribers as well???

Re:Hmmm

[gman003]

The "infrastructure" seems to be a secure courier handing over hard drives in a lockbox. This is more like offline backup, not online.

Re:Hmmm

[Radtoo]

Ask them... probably it would actually outlast a nuke or two. Well, we know the existing nuclear powers are capable of sending many nukes, cutting cables and underwater cables, destroying microwave dishes, some also can shoot down any satellites they don't like. But the fact that they can do ALL of that AND kill most of the world's population due to starting a nuclear war by attacking the center of Europe is what puts more than a few nails into the coffin of specifically nuke-blast protection.
Somehow I get the feeling even just that last little bit might make whatever data or other goods you put there rather un-valuable anyhow, as there won't be quite so many people in need of it for a while.

By the way, it also definitely won't last against some much less Apocalyptic event, such as the Swiss criminal justice, the legislative, or the Swiss people deciding that your goods need to be handed over.

Even so, I think it's decent hosting, rather safe against theft or sabotage, and a good reason for your executive staff or chief sysadmin will get a one or more days of skiing holidays in Switzerland every few years.

Can we find the bunker?

[lightspeedius]

The article states "Wired has been instructed not to disclose its exact whereabouts." However it also gives a fair amount of info about it's location. I'm not familiar with the Swiss Alps, but there's probably at least a couple of people on the Internet who are.

What we know is:
It's in or near the "tiny village of Saanen, in the canton of Bern."
You have to "pass a Tissot boutique abutting a tractor dealership before the road dives into dense forest and follows a stream."
It "appears to be nothing more than a timber operation, with lorries moving wooden payloads around a gravelly clearing."

Is there enough there to find this place?

Wait.

[Samantha Wright]

Who would nuke Switzerland?

Re:Wait.

[Galvatron]

Well, David Brin's book Earth posited a future where transparency had become such an accepted norm that the developed world went to war with (and nuked) Switzerland for attempting to maintain secrets (secret bank accounts and such). Probably far-fetched, but at any rate, the more relevant question is whether the server farm would stay connected to the Internet if Switzerland were nuked. A server farm doesn't do you much good if the cables leading in are cut, especially given that you'd have to send someone hiking through the alps into a radioactive wasteland to re-establish contact if the connections were cut...