BastionHost Buys Nova Scotia Data Bunker « Data Center Knowledge

BastionHost Buys Nova Scotia Data Bunker « Data Center Knowledge.

I always do a “rollseyes” when I see these “Datacenter in a Cold War Bunker” stories. One because they are just silly when they tout the “can survive a nuclear strike” capabilities… look, if ICBM’s are falling out of the sky, we’ve got much bigger problems than website uptime!

Second, the facilities in question were designed to house PEOPLE, not datacenters. The power & cooling infrastructure is designed to support something like 90 Watts per square foot at MOST. Datacenter these days wants 500 Watts per square foot minimum. Additionally, the infrastructure is all over FORTY YEARS OLD!

To relate it to something most of my readers can understand, that is like asking a early or mid-60s race car to be competitive today. First you have to completely restore it, rebuild it with all manner of modern upgrades, then watch as the new cars pass you like you are going backwards.

Sure the James Bond Supervillian image is cool for about 30 seconds. But after that, you have a facility that can never truly compete without dumping cubic tons of money into it.

This market can’t support the “bunker” model unless the grid power available to it is dirt cheap, and you’ve basically gutted the bunker and completely rebuilt it. At that point what do you have that is competitive?

Oh yeah, nuclear strike survival. When that becomes a selling point I’m getting out of this business.