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Former NATO Nuclear Bunker Now an 'Airless' Unmanned Data Center

Posted by timothy on from the no-humans-involved dept.

An anonymous reader writes A German company has converted a 1960s nuclear bunker 100 miles from network hub Frankfurt into a state-of-the-art underground data center with very few operators and very little oxygen. IT Vision Technology (ITVT) CEO Jochen Klipfel says: 'We developed a solution that reduces the oxygen content in the air, so that even matches go outIt took us two years'. ITVT have the European Air Force among its customers, so security is an even higher priority than in the average DC build; the refurbished bunker has walls 11 feet thick and the central complex is buried twenty feet under the earth.

31 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. How is maintenance performed? by Isarian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Do staff go down with O2 tanks for maintenance, cleaning, server work, etc?

    1. Re:How is maintenance performed? by kogut · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hopefully the "low staff" was intentional, and not a side effect.

    2. Re:How is maintenance performed? by TWX · · Score: 2

      So you're saying they just don't need U?

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    3. Re:How is maintenance performed? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do staff go down with O2 tanks for maintenance, cleaning, server work, etc?

      Easy problem. They just hired some Perl divers to do admin. Those guys can hold their breath for an impressive amount of time and are comfortable with CLI use, natural fit.

    4. Re:How is maintenance performed? by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Technically SCBA like the fire department uses, unless they use rebreathers.

      Or just pumping in normal air.

      The primary purpose of the low-oxygen environment is fire suppression - remember the fire triangle? Underground, a fire is a serious hazard because it's difficult to fight and can spread quite quickly.

      So during normal operations, the servers are in a low oxygen atmosphere which means fire opportunities are minimized. During maintenance periods, it's possible to either use an SCBA (perhaps for emergency service) or to bring in fresh air so people can work normally (because SCBAs are a huge PITA to deal with - all the extra training, potential issues and even just plain comfort - you feel like you're working hard to get air, feel like your suffocating, and the mask can get clammy in a few minutes of use which just makes you want to rip it off).

    5. Re:How is maintenance performed? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      How common are datacenter fires? The last time I heard about a computer catching fire was more than 20 years ago, and the fire was minor and didn't spread to adjacent equipment. They seem to be putting a lot of effort and expense into solving a "problem" that has already be adequately solved.

      Other than fire suppression, is there any other practical advantage to locating a datacenter underground?

       

    6. Re:How is maintenance performed? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Do staff go down with O2 tanks for maintenance, cleaning, server work, etc?

      No, just red shirts.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    7. Re:How is maintenance performed? by wierd_w · · Score: 2

      sulfur hexafluoride makes more sense.

      In addition to being chemically inert, heavier than air, and available in large industrial quantities-- it also is highly resistive, and makes electrical sparking nearly impossible.

      It is also less environmentally dangerous than halon.

    8. Re:How is maintenance performed? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

      So you're saying they just don't need U?

      U is for Underwater. I assume the data center is not submerged.

    9. Re:How is maintenance performed? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 3, Funny

      So you're saying they just don't need U?

      If it was underwater, the fire department probably wouldn't need to be there.

    10. Re:How is maintenance performed? by mysidia · · Score: 2

      How common are datacenter fires? The last time I heard about a computer catching fire was more than 20 years ago, and the fire was minor and didn't spread to adjacent equipment.

      I suspect the battery stacks, generator fuel, or high current wiring for delivering electricity would be some points of greatest risk.

      Theft is not that common in above ground datacenters, either; the facilities are serious about physical security. It is probably due to the same reason the facility is underground in the first place and why people would like to colocate something underground --- higher security, lower risk tolerance compared to applications for traditional datacenters.

      Protection against fire is just another physical security issue being addressed. Without the low-O2.... the risk of damage to equipment by fire would be perceived to be higher in an underground facility with closed and confined spaces than an aboveground facility; less freedom of air to move = potentially greater risk over time of wearing out electrical systems that malfunction and overheat at risk of causing a flame to ignite.

      Also, being underground, there would be no easy firefighter access.

    11. Re:How is maintenance performed? by Flavianoep · · Score: 2

      'We developed a solution that reduces the oxygen content in the air, so that even matches go outIt took us two years'."

      This sentence may have been written in there.

      No, it's just consequence of /.'s old lack of compliance with Unicode and disregard of the mandatory space after punctuation in the source. So when the pasted text was rendered, the ellipsis was suppressed nothing was left between the words "out" and "It".

      --
      Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
    12. Re:How is maintenance performed? by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This may or may not be a serious problem, depending on how they designed the data center.

      Because it is heavier than air (REALLY heavier than air-- you can float a tinfoil boat on it!), all you need to do to evacuate it is add pressurized normal air above it, and have an openable floor drain reservoir to allow the displaced sulfur hexafluoride to exit through. The normal air will displace the gas.

      Additionally, the heaviness of the gas will cause it to stay pooled in the datacenter, meaning you wont have to keep adding gas to the datacenter as often to maintain the low O2 environment.

      Additionally, it is "safe" to breathe sulfur hexafluoride. (About as safe as huffing helium)-- it just displaces the oxygen. it does not itself cause any choking or inhalation hazard other than asphyxiation from low O2. It makes your voice very deep sounding.

      If done right, "draining" the gas could be an extremely cost effective solution. (When done, open the vents at the top of the datacenter, then just pump the gas back into the room from the reservoir under the floor.)

      So, it being heavier than air may or may not be a problem, depending on how they designed the system.

    13. Re:How is maintenance performed? by jbengt · · Score: 2

      sulfur hexafluoride makes more sense.

      It is also less environmentally dangerous than halon.

      Sulfur hexafluoride is an . . . extremely potent greenhouse gas. . . . According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SF6 is the most potent greenhouse gas that it has evaluated, with a global warming potential of 23,900[19] times that of CO2 when compared over a 100-year period.

      New production of halon has already been banned (for ozone depletion), anyway, so it is of course not a good choice.

    14. Re:How is maintenance performed? by wierd_w · · Score: 2

      Of course it is. So is water vapor.

      Unlike CO2, Methane, Water vapor, and several others, Sulfur hexafluoride is SIGNIFICANTLY heavier than normal air. Inside an enclosed space, where it wont be diluted through mechanical agitation (wind), it will happily remain pooled.

      You know, places like this underground data center.

      The reason it has such a high rating is because it is a fully inert fluoride complex. The energy needed to break it down is crazy high. That's kinda important here, because it's used for fire suppression and electrical spark suppression. Normal UV exposure in the atmosphere is enough to break down methane, and plants break down CO2. Weather temperature equilibrium keeps water vapor under control. Something like S-F6 would stay in the atmosphere a VERY VERY long time if just irrationally released. Used properly, it shouldnt escape.

    15. Re:How is maintenance performed? by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you're employing a gas that's heavier than air in an underground environment, I rather doubt that you'll need to worry about its greenhouse properties.

      The greenhouse gasses I worry about are the ones that rise up overhead.

      No matter how many panes of glass your greenhouse has, if they're lying on the floor, they're not going to do much.

    16. Re:How is maintenance performed? by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Interesting

      S-F6 is 6x heavier than normal air.

      Pure nitrogen is not anywhere near that level of disparity. Also, pure nitrogen does not have the same electrical insulation properties. You could put a tesla coil in a S-F6 atmosphere, and it would not discharge until a VERY significant voltage had been achieved.

      This means that even if an electrical failure occurs in the datacenter, sparking would not be a source of secondary ignition.

      Pure nitrogen would also be harder to determine when the atmosphere in the datacenter was safe for human respiration. With the S-F6, if you inhale it, it makes you sound like a steroid pusher. You could immediately tell if the atmosphere had not been vented, long before you became woozy and light headed from O2 deprivation.

    17. Re:How is maintenance performed? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 2

      I am an underwater fire fighter, you insensitive clod?

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  2. Headline stupidity by Sperbels · · Score: 2

    Kind of an inaccurate headline. "Airless" makes it sound like a vacuum...which would naturally make air cooling impossible.

    1. Re:Headline stupidity by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      on the plus side it makes running the deep fryer in the control center very efficient.

      2018: In order to be more environmentally-friendly with their servers, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Google have announced a partnership with McDonald's. Your next order of french fries will help save the environment! Apple declined to comment on oil cooling but mentioned that their new campus would bring about a new era of solar power gathered from orbit.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  3. I am impressed by Stachel · · Score: 2, Informative

    I had to look up this European Air Force. Turns out they've existed longer than I thought! From http://www.europeanaf.net/:

    The European Air Force has now reached its teens!

    --
    Stachel
    1. Re:I am impressed by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      Read further. They're a gaming community. I'm super confused as to why they were quoted as something meaningful.

  4. European Air Force? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's no such thing!!!

    1. Re:European Air Force? by phaunt · · Score: 2

      I was as confused as you are. But I found that such a thing was actually proposed just over a year ago and even got a lot of support!

  5. Side effect of the nuclear era, not DC design. by geekmux · · Score: 2

    "...security is an even higher priority than in the average DC build; the refurbished bunker has walls 11 feet thick and the central complex is buried twenty feet under the earth."

    Uh, the average DC build isn't done under the threat of nuclear attack and surviving the aftermath.

    Don't make it sound like the customers of this data center demanded 11-foot thick walls, or that any DC design would.

    Those physical benefits are merely a side-effect of an era we would like to forget about.

  6. What kind of 'solution' was it? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    I wonder what constraints were placed on the problem that made "displace the oxygen in this sealed bunker" a two-year problem? Maybe it's a quote taken out of context and refers to how long the entire environmental control setup took?

  7. European Air Force by gnunick · · Score: 2
    Why does a "group of over 30 players from all over Europe" care about heightened security, and how could they even afford hosting in such a datacenter?

    The [European Air Force] was founded in 16th December 1998 by Serval and some other flight sim players from the Netherlands.

    http://www.europeanaf.net/

    --
    I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
  8. Re:This is logistically impossible. by geekmux · · Score: 2

    Haha. This is essentially impossible. The more equipment, the more broken equipment, the more techs need to go in to work on it. An airless data center would have to be a very small data center, because if someone has to go in and fix something, well, they are gonna need oxygen.

    So, all those transatlantic communications cables...I suppose those are all just a myth because we humans would never logistically put something that could break below thousands of feet of water.

    Don't even get me started on the logistics behind putting shit in space. We'll need to call Spock for that logic showdown.

  9. Re:This is logistically impossible. by LWATCDR · · Score: 2

    They do but then they take a big expensive ship find the cable and bring it to the surface to fix it.
    The real issue is not if it is possible because it is possible. The big question is if it is worth it?
    Removing all the 02 mean no fires and reduced corrosion.
    It also means more cost for fixing thing that go wrong.
    The simplest way to do this would be to flood the bunker with Argon since it heavier than O2 and N2 it should displace the O2 but again the question would be why?

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  10. Hypoxic air technology for fire prevention by xluap · · Score: 2

    Hypoxic air technology for fire prevention

    Hypoxic air technology for fire prevention, also known as oxygen reduction system, is an active fire protection technique based on a permanent reduction of the oxygen concentration in the protected rooms. Unlike traditional fire suppression systems that usually extinguish fire after it is detected, hypoxic air is able to prevent fire.

    Design and operation

    Air with a reduced oxygen content is injected to the protected volumes to lower the oxygen concentration until the desired oxygen concentration is reached.

    Air with low oxygen concentration is produced by hypoxic air generators, also known as air splitting units.

    Effects on health

    Fire-prevention systems which result in the oxygen content being less than 19.5% are not permitted for occupied spaces by federal regulation (OSHA) in the United States [3].

    However, hypoxic air is considered by some to be safe to breathe for most people.[6] Medical studies have been undertaken on this topic. Angerer and Novak's conclusion is that "working environments with low oxygen concentrations to a minimum of 13% and normal barometric pressure do not impose a health hazard, provided that precautions are observed, comprising medical examinations and limitation of exposure time".[7] Küpper et al.[8] say that oxygen concentration between 17.0-14.8% does not cause any risk for healthy people by hypoxia. It also does not cause risks for people with chronic diseases of moderate severity.

    Read more about it on wikipedia:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

  11. Guess where Thepiratebay's new servers are... by thunderclap · · Score: 2

    Now we know where the new Pirate bay servers are. And I look forward to the MPAA and police trying to seize these.