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Is Montana the Next Big Data Hub?
rye (208438) writes "Montana is positioning itself as the next hub for big data and cyber security. With companies like Symantec and IBM investing heavily in high-tech development, the opening of University of Montana's new Cyber Innovation Laboratory, and statewide competitions such as this weekend's Montana Cyber Triathlon (which had the coolest trophy ever), the momentum is strong. Cheap labor, cheap space and the Northern Tier backbone (with stretches over 600 miles across the width of Montana) are all contributing to the new tech growth. Even Congress is jumping on the bandwagon: Montana Rep. Steve Daines, a member of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security, recently said 'Technology has removed geography as a constant.'"
Not really.
Spent All My Mod Points
We have electricty you know!
Cheap labor seems to be the thing that stands out the most. I would think that labor is only cheap in Montana because land is cheap, and therefore people can live for less money. When even a modest house is , you don't have to wonder why they have to pay people so much to work there. Even if you pay the workers the same amount, you can attract a lot of talent because they'll be able to live that much more comfortably.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Your infrastructure is insufficient.
Being from Montana, and having been involved in the startup scene there, I can say that these developments are definitely an improvement but it still has a long ways to go. The main hangups for Montana are: -Remoteness (expensive to fly into / out of) -Lack of competitive talent (all the talent moves to bigger cities for work) But the pluses are substantial: -Great taxes (both current and previous governor, senators did a lot to improve tax situation for small-mid sized businesses) -Attractive work environment: proximity to Glacier Park, Yellowstone, lots of other great places to explore -As the article mentions, plenty of relatively cheap space to work in If they can manage to make the travel situation more fluid and less expensive, and find ways to keep top talent from moving to San Francisco or New York, they'll do well.
To get from the Midwest to Cali, my trace route goes to Chicago, then Dallas, then Cali. Maybe with a stronger trunk going through Montana, we can get a route that goes a bit more northern for a shorter distance.
So, how's Montana doing on the whole "we love a diverse population that looks like the whole world" thing?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Montana's total population is just slightly above 1 million. SF Bay Area is more like 7.4 million with a much higher percentage of tech workers. So, no, Montana isn't going to be the next tech hub because there aren't enough workers there. Might be a place for DC's if there's enough bandwidth.
For those wondering where it is, Montana is the US boondocks somewhere south of Canada.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Companies used to locate based on availability of transportation -- rivers, ports etc. Now it's a data pipe.
I would think if this was even somewhat true it would be evident from attempts to recruit talent from outside Montana. I haven't heard or seen any postings to attract experienced talent. This sounds like another "Promote the story to get more funds from the government" and press for the local politicians to start another mediocre fake Silicon Valley. Another place to put technology that only needs cheap inexperienced labor from the local schools. A warehouse for servers where the only talent needed is ability to push a button for hard reboot and pull out a drive or motherboard... A+ Certified only requirement, unless thats too expensive. The more experienced employees will still be elsewhere remoting in when needed. :-)
Or am I just being too harsh
...not in liquid nitrogen ?
Google Maps, search nearby, Starbucks, Sushi, Whole Foods.
Well, Montana is in the USA you dum-dum. It is so poorly developed, the people drive hundreds of miles north to Calgary in Canada to shop.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Canada's in Montana...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As the Network Administrator for the largest independent Primary Care facility in Montana I'm getting a kick out of these replies. Montana is awesome. Like, REALLY awesome if you enjoy the outdoors. I love to fish, snowmobile, hike, dirt bike, cruise the lakes and rivers, kayak, snowboard, camp.... this place is heaven on earth. However, be prepared to take a significant pay cut to live here. My current position pays me almost less than half of what my job would pull in major metropolitan areas. This fact alone is why a lot of people would never consider living here. Property taxes aren't cheap for homeowners and first time home buyers are in for a shock that the cheapest decent homes on the market in my area are selling for around $250,000 - $280,000. I moved here from Atlanta about 20 years ago and some of my friends are scoring 3,000 - 4,000 sqft homes under $200,000 that are REALLY nice. Combine the high cost of first time home ownership with low wages and you can see why it isn't very attractive to live here on paper. But, if I have to be honest, I LOVE it this way. It keeps the big open spaces open (for now), population centers aren't overcrowded, and our populace is generally very happy and content. Usually I enjoy telling people this place sucks so they don't even think of moving here.
Try it yourself. You might find out that to be successful at it requires skill and education. I have family there that are one of two families left in a several hundred mile radius that are still farming successfully. All the rest gave up or gave out. Between droughts, harsh winters and fluctuations in feed prices it isn't as easy as watch some cows munch grass, and yes, they are educated and have dedicated fiber running straight to the farm that far surpasses the quality of dsl I can get in the city here in Florida.
Get a web developer
Assuming some backhoe resistance on lines, Montana makes sense for data centers. It is well out of the way geographically from the more populated areas, and other than winter, there isn't much in the way of natural disasters that could come that way. As stated above, the cold climate makes it perfect for a data center.
Only downside is that people would have to live quite near the data center if a blizzard happens, but done right, that shouldn't be much of an issue if planned right.
No. Montana sucks. Please don't move here...I mean there.
Most STEM degrees at the undergraduate level are equivalent. It is only in grad school that differentiation occurs. Logic is logic. Java is Java. Differential equations are differential equations no matter where on the globe you are.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
While there is a grain of truth to that, don't over do it. Yes, you have to get used to a gun culture, but it's remarkably low key. It's just 'normal'. Most hunters (certainly not all) understand that some people don't like to see bloody real things or talk about them. Most rural folks are rather polite and even fairly tolerant.
It might do you some good to be around a culture that just uses guns as tools. Yes, there is a smattering of scary militia types, but you find them pretty much everywhere except downtown NYC. Even with those clowns, if you don't bother them (well advised), they won't bother you.
Here in Alaska, it's not unusual to see someone hitching down the road with a hunting rifle. And getting picked up. Humans can get used to most anything.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Whenever someone Slashvertises something on /. with a post whose title is a question then (at least) one of us always brings up Betteridge's Law Of Headlines. If not directly, then indirectly (like this).
So why do they keep doing it? I gotta believe that if someone's paying for it that at least one customer would follow up with the results at least one time (and send feedback to whichever company/-ies slashvertise for them)
(Yes, my subject should be "Why do Slashvertisements...", but I ran out of characters :) )
What about the Yellowstone caldera?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Gonna be a dental floss tycoon.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
In 30 years or so when I inherit my parents' home in Missoula, I'll be sitting pretty.
In the mean time, I can go visit them and enjoy the pre-Fairfax/Loudoun County-ized state of the area.
This seems like a win-win situation to me.
Most STEM degrees at the undergraduate level are equivalent.
Take ten people with CS degrees from MIT. Take ten more with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. Give them each a programming assignment that should take about an hour. It is highly unlikely that the results will be "equivalent".
A good STEM degree doesn't just signify knowledge, but also understanding. Learning how to identify the best tool for the job, or even creating a new tool, requires more than just knowledge.
Just FYI, the parent is referring to Austin, TX. They had a huge population growth period but the city was under the mentality of "If we don't build it, they won't come." They were wrong, so Austin has something like the 4th worst traffic in the US and a cost of living somewhat like Atlanta.
My experiences cycling across South Africa last winter, where I often stopped for the night at a local farm because there wasn't anything else for the next 100km, did much to disabuse me of the notion that large-scale farmers and ranchers are uneducated. Many of them had done rigorous university studies in the big city before coming back to the middle of nowhere, and they still kept up with the latest scholarly literature to maximise gains.
However, their education was specifically on fields useful to farming and ranching such as chemistry, biology, veterinary sciences, economics, etc. They had no background in computer science, and though they had a network brought out to the farm to allow them to track e.g. feed prices, they didn't know much about how said network or their computers worked. So, I understand the OP's suspicion that Montana may lack an educated workforce capable of luring IT firms.
Oh my soul for mod points!
Why do you say highly unlikely? If everyone completes the same basic courses then that is evidence their intelligence is about equivalent.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Nope. We're all toothless hillbillies. Montana is horrible.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Measuring understanding is hard. But I will contend that if two people get equivalent degrees with equivalent grades their understanding will be approximately equivalent. And I will also posit that real depth of understanding only comes after several years of experience.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Why do you say highly unlikely?
You have a serious detachment from reality if you think Univ of Phoenix graduates will, on average, perform as well as MIT graduates.
If everyone completes the same basic courses ...
But they are NOT "the same". Classes at top tier schools have better instructors, more rigorous standards, more and harder assignments, and more competitive students.
http://www.thewesternnews.com/...
if i had mod-points i'd give them to you. I wish more people realized that you don't have to be terrified of a gun. I live in Texas and no one seems to care about guns, not here in Dallas, not in Austin, not out West or anywhere. It's just not that big of a deal. Folks you don't have to live in fear, it must be exhausting to have to constantly worry about whether or not everyone you see owns a rifle.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Broadband is getting better. We just started an ISP in Helena, offering up faster speeds than Charter and Century Link. We can get 100 Mb up/down to anyone in the downtown Helena area. Expansion on the existing range is already in motion as well.
Both Apple and Facebook put data centers in Prineville, Oregon which is a place I wouldn't consider any more advanced than Montana. Apparently they haven't had problems attracting workers.
I hear you. We have a saying here in the Beaver State: "Don't Californicate Oregon".
they did it for the costs. parts changers are cheap, and power and bandwidth are cheap there as well.
When you have a parts changer, but good sysadmins across the globe you can do that. with remote kvm's and now most servers with good baseband management tools, it's cheaper to have good sysadmins do the cleanup and setup work from half a world away.
Pay the sysadmins to automate most of the process and have cheap parts changers on hand and it's easy as sin to keep a datacenter running well. It's pricey but the sysadmins are constantly busy across multiple datacenters and it lowers cost.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
But they are NOT "the same". Classes at top tier schools have ... more competitive students.
Frankly, I think you could have left the rest of your list out and this would be the answer. Better/more competitive schools draw a generally better caliber of students. I've studied and/or worked at enough different institutions of higher education (small liberal arts college, Ivy League uni, 3 different state universities) that I'll say this as fact, and I know a number of people who've taken courses/gotten degrees at Phoenix or equivalent, usually because it was necessary for their continued employment.
This isn't to say that there aren't good students at these "lesser" institutions. In fact, I'd say the very top students have a similar level of talent/intelligence across the board. Many good students choose to stay local for various reasons: financial, family, etc. The real difference is in the bottom 50% or so of the student bodies. At a top school, these students are still generally decent, at least they don't struggle to walk and chew gum at the same time. At the lower tier schools, it's a very different story.
You can't quit us!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Modern cattle ranching actually requires a ton of education if you want to be at all successful at it.
The Big Sky area of Montana is already full of vacation homes and ranches of wealthy VC types so its not a big stretch that they might choose to plop a Data Center there. Still I think it is far more likely that you will see more data centers copping up in SLC because of the NSA. All the big government contractors will be putting boots on the ground in SLC and they can't co-locate at the NSA facility.
SF, NYC, and DC are just so expensive.
It absolutely does. I worked for the largest Tech Engineering firm in the state a few years ago. It's relocating to Denver, so there goes all the talent. And I mean all the talent. Filling seats was about the hardest part of our job. No one else was doing what we were doing in Billings, the largest city. Of course, Bozeman and Missoula have cheaper student labor, so maybe they can make it work there. But those are also the most expensive cities so the cheap part is out the window.
I was stationed there in the middle 80's - pretty much the eastern half of the state is minuteman III missile silos. Good old Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Actually it's the other way round... folks from Calgary are often seen shopping in Great Falls (prolly not so much now with the oil boom and all the growth on northward, but when I was a kid there, it was very much so). Never heard of anyone doing the opposite.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Where are your people at? I've got rancher relatives up by Fort Benton myself. And yeah, it not only requires skill and education, it requires good judgment and good risk assessment, because nothing is a 100% sure thing in agriculture.
And as to the educational level... it's so much better in MT than, say, California (I can attest, having lived about equal time both places) it's not funny. But don't believe me, believe the Census data:
This was current as of 2007, but it's enough to illustrate trends:
For population 25 years and over in Lancaster, California:
* High school or higher: 78.3%
* Bachelor's degree or higher: 15.8%
* Graduate or professional degree: 5.6%
* Unemployed: 11.2%
For population 25 years and over in Bozeman, Montana:
* High school or higher: 94.3%
* Bachelor's degree or higher: 49.5%
* Graduate or professional degree: 15.6%
* Unemployed: 9.5%
(Lancaster CA was doing significantly better than nearby Los Angeles. Bozeman is about typical for MT.)
Montana State University is among the top schools in the world for Engineering, Chemistry, and Architecture. In fact my sister (who is a partner in a big architectural firm in CA that has offices worldwide) recruits mostly from MSU, because, in her words, that's the only place she can find competent prospects.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Blizzards happen all the time, but we've got these newfangled contraptions called snowplows... in fact we're equipped to deal with winter in the extreme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Okay, so that's way up in the high country, but I've never seen it to where you couldn't get around in town or couldn't get from one town to the next if you really had to.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You could make this a little more fair by pitting one person with a CS degree from MIT against ten people with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. ;)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?