A Data Center That Looks Like a Mansion

1sockchuck writes "A luxury homebuilder in Minnesota wants to build a data center that looks like a mansion, allowing the commercial building to fit into a residential neighborhood. The 'community-based data center' designed for FiberPop features a stone facade and sloped roof with dormers, along with an underground data hall."

Comments

I kinda do the same thing...

[AngryDeuce]

But for crystal meth.

Re:I kinda do the same thing...

[ae1294]

But for crystal meth.

The hole you dug under your trailer doesn't count.

Re:I kinda do the same thing...

[PNutts]

<quote>

<quote><p>But for crystal meth.</p></quote>

<p>The hole you dug under your trailer doesn't count.</p></quote>

Who say's you can't colo in shallow graves?

Minnetonka, Minnesota

[damn_registrars]

Has many of the most expensive homes in the state. Part of the city borders on Lake Minnetonka, which is a popular place for wealthy famous people to build their mansions. Now as more people are looking to live in that second-ring suburb, a lot of neighborhoods are popping up featuring McMansions like the one you see there. Should fit in well, though I'm not sure it would be that advantageous to the company to place themselves that far outside the city of Minneapolis, unless they expect the majority of their customers to be from the suburbs.

Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota

[CapOblivious2010]

It seems like some of the most expensive land you can buy, so I'm not sure why they'd want to use it for a data center, which can be built pretty much anywhere (and which is generally not staffed by mansion-dwellers)

Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota

[Captain Hook]

And the customers need easy physical access?

All it needs is a fat pipe into the building and it could be located pretty much anywhere.

Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota

[tomhath]

Most likely the builder doesn't really want to build a data center. Builders use all kinds of tactics like this to try and force the zoning board into granting them approval to build higher density developments than the board wants. This looks like "we'll build one big honking building that you have to approve because of a loophole we found, and a bunch of smaller houses that you denied earlier because the lots were too small".

I saw a similar move a few years ago where the builder tried to force approval of a mobile home park with a "corrective amendment" in a township that required a 2 acre minimum lot size because he really wanted to put up tract homes and a small sewage treatment plant that nobody trusted would be operated correctly. That attempt failed because the township didn't exclude mobile homes (there were actually a fair number of mobile homes in the largely rural township where the 2 acre minimum was needed for proper on-site septic systems). But it was a long and expensive fight.

Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota

[Opportunist]

You expect users to act rational? I'm pretty sure being able to go over and "see" your data is a selling point for some people. Helll, I had a boss who refused to get (heaps cheaper and more reliable) server housing instead of having the server located in our storage room because he was afraid to "lose control" of the data.

People are not necessarily rational creatures. So yes, having "physical access", as limited if not nonexisting as it may actually be, might even be a reason.

Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota

[icebike]

Bingo. Or the owner just wants to have his mansion be a tax write off.

And the wine cellar potential of that underground data center won't hurt the resale value a bit when the data center goes belly up. The picture in the linked shows a pretty dis-joint structure. Perfect for conversion into a tri-plex.

The whole thing seems like a ploy to me.

Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota

[Kagato]

I know the area. There's no reason to build out there. The land is just as expensive as downtown Minneapolis, and there's almost no one to peer with for upstream connections. And it's not like Minnetonka is all that far from Minneapolis. Seems like a good way to lose money on a datacenter.

Real reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Easier for the techs to get pizza delivery.

Re:Real reason

[damn_registrars]

Easier for the techs to get pizza delivery.

Actually, in that blue-blood upper-class suburb they might have fewer pizza delivery options (at least at rates that techs can afford to pay) than they would have in the city proper.

But what does it sound like?

[hackertourist]

In particular, will the neighbors enjoy the continuous howling of the AC fans?

Re:But what does it sound like?

[vlm]

In particular, will the neighbors enjoy the continuous howling of the AC fans?

That and the dual 1 megawatt diesel generators, which are test run once a week for an hour during 3rd shift, mostly to keep 3rd shift awake... They're a little bit quieter than a locomotive at full throttle, but not much.

Another important point is this is only a couple hundred miles from my home, and unless things are wildly different there than here, the "urban skyscraper area", hospital, police dept, etc are snowplowed out every 30 minutes during storms, but residential? Eh, maybe an hour or two after the storm ends, they'll think of plowing it out. So they have no access in or out of the building during a snow storm. Whoops.

Finally all the DCs I've worked with/at had underground feeders. No big deal in the urban area or farmland, but in McMansion-ville you're going to seriously annoy the neighbors constantly digging up their rosebushes.

Of course, they are probably not installing a "real" data center, because a FTTH provider does not require one, my guess is they're probably installing a single rack (or less) of gear as part of some tax or zoning or building code dodge. Maybe zoning doesn't allow a sales office, tech center, or warehouse, but they Really Want one, so they'll install a "data center" instead which happens to coincidentally have a sales dept, warehouse. tech dispatch center, etc, located in the same building.

Re:But what does it sound like?

[Matheus]

A few points:
1) You say you live a couple hundred miles away from Minnetonka. That places you exactly no where that is even slightly resemblent of this area so I wouldn't use your personal local experience as a good reference.
2) The suburbs around the Twin Cities (especially the rich ones like Minnetonka) are plowed significantly better than the core. Faster, better plowing/QOS. We haven't had much snow this year at all but last year when we were buried the cores basically shut down because they had no where to put the snow and because the urban street parking gets in the way of fully clearing the roads. Also, this being a large enough private parcel, they will have no problem getting their property cleared privately for much less cost than you might think (especially if they find some cost effective way to use the plowed snow for cooling)
3) This is not being built in the middle of a bunch of McMansions... this is former, not yet developed, farm land (Minnetonka's about as close to the downtowns as you can get and still find that). A large part of Minnetonka is not the extremely expensive lake-living property. The real estate market is also terrible still (although recovering a bit) so the previous plans to develop this land probably fell apart. No one is financing new subdivisions because they can't sell the properties they've already built. This is a developer who had already purchased the land finding a new way to make use of it. Noise and traffic are not non-issues but when the developer owns all the land surrounding the place he can control a lot about who cares. TFA mentions the reduced density the land will have probably including significant distancing to reduce sound issues.
4) Although there is some merit to the scams theories popping up, they really are close to their target audience. Aside from the FTTH service that would probably be a small part of the new business, The outer tier suburbs have really exploded in terms of tech offices. We have a larger technical base out-city, especially around Minnetonka/Excelcior/Eden Prairie, than downtown has. The money out there is HUGE and they are being smart finding themselves close to their customers corporate AND residential.

Just sayin...

Hmmm ..

[OzPeter]

A commercial building is still a commercial building whether it looks like an office block, a play ground, a mansion or a church. As far as I know zoning laws restrict usage based on usage and not looks. And I'd imagine that the local residents (in their high priced gated community) wouldn't like strangers running in and out to service this business.

Re:Hmmm ..

[mcrbids]

Yes, use rather than looks, but there are ways to game the system...

I almost bought a (gorgeous!) pair of 1920's bungalow set in a history-steeped downtown, small-town America. There was over 3,000 feet of living space, enormous basements, riverfront access to a gorgeous river, etc.

But there were some caveats: because it was downtown, it was zoned for light commercial use, which meant that although you could live there, you had to have a "primary presence" of a commercial space. So where the front room would be, there was a clothing shop, with a sign, and posted hours: "open by appointment only" that nobody ever went into and hadn't been looked at in years.

After thinking about it (and the culture of the very small town, not nearly as intellectual as I'm used to) I decided not to buy. Of course, history is the best judge; had I bought the place I would likely have a net worth far greater than I do now, since the city bought the property under imminent domain and the owner made a small fortune on it.

I guess I just wanted to say that properties are frequently not what they seem. For giggles, take a Google tour of some of the stealth oil wells in the Los Angeles area.

Re:60 cars

[tunapez]

Parking, deliveries, getting a fat pipe into the hood... I realize local guvs are hard-up for cash, but I doubt any residential zoning permits will be issued to build in the 1st place.There's plenty of commercial available these days, there you can make your DC look like a flying saucer or a sandcrawler if you like.

Re:What's the advantage?

[tunapez]

None. It's only function is to get a half-baked idea posted on /.

What a coincidence

[PPH]

I'm building a mansion that looks like a data center.

You think that's wacky...

[RobinEggs]

Hidden cell phone towers and data centers are weird enough, but how many of you have heard of the working oil fields underneath Los Angeles?

This video at the Huffington Post is the best explanation I can find offhand, but there are pictures and documentaries all over if you look for them.

Re:The neighbors wil love..

[PNutts]

I wouldn't mind the generater noise if they gave me a tap into it. Power goes out, my lights stay on. And I agree with an earlier post. Having grown up in the Midwest, the summer the lawnmowing starts early and ends late. Leaf blowers and edgers are the worst. Then the winter snow-blowers. I know... First world problems.

Re:The neighbors wil love..

[PNutts]

You just nweed to type dcarefullyand reiveiw.

Slow news day?

[tqk]

You should see the firehalls they're building in new communities here. They look just like a house, except firetrucks roll out of the garage periodically.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...

Oil in Beverly Hills

[Animats]

How many of you have heard of the working oil fields underneath Los Angeles?

LA used to be famous for that. (Look at 03:00) There were oil rigs all over town. Beverly Hills High School still has a rig. It brings in about $1 million a year. There used to be hundreds of pumps between LAX and Venice Beach.

The LA basin is mostly pumped out now, and most pumps have been removed. Most of the remaining ones are concealed.

Re:Snow?

[Xugumad]

Global warming will take a long time to make winters consistently mild. Keep in mind, for example, that the west coast just got snowed senseless.

Cover

[ebs16]

This would be a great cover for a grow house.

Power company / police: "Why is your power consumption so high?"
Owner: "I'm running a data center."

A google map of the site.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=15545+Ranchview+Court+minnetonka+mn&ll=44.973056,-93.474383&spn=0.02365,0.039353&hnear=15545+Ranchview+Ct,+Minnetonka,+Hennepin,+Minnesota+55391&gl=us&t=h&z=15&vpsrc=6

After a bit of googleing seems to be where they plan to put it. This is not the prime area of Minnetonka, just north of a highway, no lake, behind some car dealerships, and on a swamp. It is also only about 1/2 mile from a middle school. You need to go about two mile southwest from there for the major homes or the west side of lake Minnetonka.

As for the fan and generator noise, probably quieter than the 2 major highways (I394 & I494) right near there same for the generators(especially if steps are taken to minimize the sound of both). I'd bet ambient daytime sound levels are rather high there.

Fun facts, I drive within 0.25 miles of this site everyday on my way to work, I work in the same building as the architect in question, and work for a company that makes HVAC units for datacenters among other uses.

Phone switch buildings have done this for years

[Hadlock]

If you go to Plano (suburb of Dallas, Texas), there are tens, if not a hundred buildings scattered all over the city that look like houses, with roofs, centrally located doors (like houses), manicured "lawns" and even a tree in the "front yard". They typically occupy less than a quarter acre and only have parking for one or two cars (particularly Verizon trucks).
 
They have no windows.
 
Typically 1,000 sq feet or so they look like a small house, or a detached garage (rare in the area) and have brick exteriors (matches the houses in the area) with roof overhangs. No two are exactly alike, but they're generally near the entrance.
 
So yes, it's not uncommon to see telecommunications buildings (I guess mansions would be the next logical step) in neighborhoods disguised as "houses". They're easy to pick out if you know to look for them. I'm sure other cities have them too (particularly in the DFW area).