Thursday, April 16, 2009

But where are the sharks with Lasers on their foreheads?

Information Technology is pretty boring to normal people (i.e. people who are not in IT). Datacenters - a fancy name for "stinking huge computer rooms - are even more boring than the rest of IT. Except for this one:
In an underground bunker 100 feet beneath Stockholm lies a unique facility operated by the Swedish ISP Bahnhof. It’s become known as the “James Bond Villain Data Center” after it was featured on the Pingdom web site last year. Dean Nelson of Data Center Pulse recently got a tour of the data center from Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung, who provided a look at the many unusual features of the facility, a former military bunker designed to withstand a hydrogen bomb blast. Karlung has said he drew his inspiration for many of the center’s flourishes from James Bond villains (especially Ernst Blofeld), hence the waterfalls, greenhouse-style NOC, glass-enclosed conference room “floating” above the colocation floor, and blue-lit diesel engines (supposedly used in German submarines).
Subterranean waterfalls. U-boat diesel engines. Jungles growing under artificial lighting. A glass conference room suspended in mid-air above the computing machinery.

Pretty cool what you can do with a Cold War bunker designed to resist Hydrogen Bomb blasts. The nine minute video is worth the watch, although alas the Datacenter is indeed shark-less.

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