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Microsoft Plans $1 Billion Server Farm In Iowa
1sockchuck (826398) writes "Microsoft will invest $1.1 billion to build a massive new server farm in Iowa, not far from an existing data center in West Des Moines. The 1.2 million square foot campus will be one of the biggest in the history of the data center industry. It further enhances Iowa's status as the data center capital of the Midwest, with Google and Facebook also operating huge server farms in the state."
you can grow servers from seed. Does Monsanto know about this???
Makes sense, it saves about $38 million in taxes which you guys are going to have to cough up instead of Microsoft.
Internet is for corn!
Ezekiel 23:20
Everything should be fine in Windows 9.1 Update 1 Refresh 1 Patchouli 1.
Maybe they want to keep their servers from ending up in the local pawn shop...
Dollars are a measure of importance. If such an encrusted Pi were actually constructed, it would indeed be newsworthy.
Dollars are a measure of importance. If such an encrusted Pi were actually constructed, it would indeed be newsworthy.
Dollars are speech. Just ask the US Supreme Court.
Are they going to run it off any alternative power sources?
I could see a pig shit methane plant, Iowa produces 1/4 of all pork in the US.
there's huge demand for NSA run hosting facilities worldwide.
It's hard to understand why, after all these years, local and state governments STILL haven't figured out why it's pointless to spend one thin dime of tax incentives on projects like this. They persist in visions of row upon row of cubicles filled with hard-working, high-paid, tax-paying programmers. When, in fact, after construction, the total payroll is little different from a simple warehouse or small wholesale distro center that they would never consider paying any incentives to attract. The data center might have a half-dozen or so skilled tech workers, if that, and the rest of the staff are going to be low-paid parts-swapping monkeys. The "real" work will all be done remotely. If you have a limited incentives budget, why spend it on a data center?
Moreover, unless the community is blessed with a large amount of "spare" power (like areas with oversized nuc plants or the cheap hydro in the Northwest) all that grid capacity going into a power-hungry, job-poor, data center could be better spent on other projects.
Oh, the corn. Think of the corn. Children will starve in Des Moines.
8 miles is not far. It is not too hard to envisage a disaster that could affect both sites at once. For starters: Iowa is smack in the middle of Tornado Alley. They are close enough that power supplies and Internet connections will be 'related'. OK: it makes it easier for staff to visit both sites, but 80 miles seems to me safer than 8.
That's the Hollywood argument. So how's the Californian government getting on after all that tax evasion?
The reality is no trickle down but instead just hitting someone else for the funds and ultimately a different industry hobbled due to not being picked as a winner.
Your math skills need considerable upgrade. Making conservative estimates (ignoring deductions, using the unmarried tax rates, etc), a $60K job pays $3700 per year in Iowa state income tax. 84 of those amounts to $310,800 per year. 10 years brings $3,108,000 to the state. In 100 years, the state will not recoup the $38 million in taxes from worker income taxes alone.
Math is more informative than off-the-cuff assertions. Embrace it.
Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain. --Friederich Schiller
Why is the price tag more important than the technical details? A diamond and gold encrusted Raspberry Pi in a large warehouse could cost 2.2 billion...
Yes, it could. And if such a Raspberry Pi would exist, much like the data center designs of the largest providers in the world, you would know very little about it for security reasons.
The price tag is more important in this case because it probably *does* reflect the scale and possible power of the project. It's not likely to be being expensive for the sake of being expensive
The hypothetical Raspberry Pi isn't a good comparison, since it was contrived for the sake of being expensive and none of that expense has much effect on the core function. Real-world examples of such devices- i.e. much, *much* cheaper devices with masses of expensive trim glued on (such as "the world's first Arab supercar", (*) Vertu phones et al) would only ever be made as status symbols, so they're not likely to be kept secret, and the type of people who own them would probably be able to keep them secure when not in use (**), you just lock them away.
By contrast, the data centre is expensive for a reason, serves a purpose and can't be locked away. Not really that good a comparison.
(*) Where I already criticised the ludicrous contrived expense of such tacky bling-ified items by pointint out that one could make the world's most expensive car by gluing the Koh-i-Noor diamond to an ageing Vauxhall Corsa, yet its "value" would say sod all about its core function as a car itself.
(**) "In use" being when they want to impress someone who's as much of a bell-end as they are, or lure some gold-digger into bed.
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