Comments on: Iceland Gets Major Data Center Project

By: Brandon Zylstra

Brandon Zylstra — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:41:48 +0000

@Jón Grétar: it sounds like a great place to live, from what I read here and have heard from people who have lived there. Is that true, in your opinion?

By: Rechenzentren in Island « 11k2

Rechenzentren in Island « 11k2 — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:22:54 +0000

[...] Mit Hilfe einer 21- Millionen-Dollar-Finanzspritze vom gemeinnützigen britischen Wellcome Trust kann das Verne Global Rechenzentrum in Island verwirklicht werden. Isländer verweisen gern auf die überreichlich vorhandene geothermale Energie zum Erzeugen von „grünem“ Strom sowie Massen von kalter Luft für die Kühlung der Server. Das passt eigentlich hervorragend zur Initiative von Wikileaks (siehe 11k2: Die Wikileaks-Island-Connection), aus Island einen „Safe Harbour“ für sensitive Daten zu machen. (via datacenterknowledge) [...]

By: Jón Grétar

Jón Grétar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:56:53 +0000

@Rich Miller: The reason for lack of datacenters in Iceland has been because of network connectivity. Until like 10 years ago we only had one submarine cable so network stability was not good enough. The situation has greatly improved now but the cost of bandwidth is still a bit high because of under utilization. Though that may get better now with the first large datacenter.

The earthquakes and volcanos are a minor concern. Most people think of Iceland as an island and in their mind islands are small. Iceland is however roughly the size of Kentucky so a volcanic eruption somewhere in the highlands are no threat. It has been hundreds of years since someone has been hurt by a volcanic eruption. These things are hundreds of miles from possible datacenter locations or large populations and the worst we get are some damaged roads.

By: Jón Grétar

Jón Grétar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:36:34 +0000

Dr. Kervokian: Seismic activity in southern Iceland is common but mild. In the area where this datacenter is you may expect some 5 to 5.5 every few years. Other places in iceland have no activity while some are capable of up to a 7(every few hundred years) but that is as high as it gets. The reason is that we have different plate tectonics as to what you may see in California. We do not have plates coming toward each other but 2 plates moving away from each other. That means that the earthquakes are smaller as there is less pressure.

Also all buildings here are built using a very very strict building code so even in the strongest earthquakes you see small damage.

By: Rich Miller

Rich Miller — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:51:23 +0000

Thanks, Martin!. Those are great resources for readers seeking to understand the conenctivity situation in Iceland.

By: Martin Hannigan

Martin Hannigan — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:23:36 +0000

For a complete picture of the connectivity in Iceland please retrieve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Iceland#Backhaul_Providers and http://www.uknof.org.uk/uknof12/Hanningan-Undersea.pdf

The Verne facility has fiber provided by Mila and traffic does need to be back hauled via the metro networks to the landing stations.

For Rich Miller:

Iceland is not overrun with data centers because while the power and cooling situation there is phenomenal, the network situation is not. The costs of capacity from Iceland and the path that eFarice chose to run the Danice cable to the EU is sub-optimal. To me, this announcement underscores Icelands competitiveness as a destination to service compute farms that need a limited amount of Internet capacity.

By: Green Datacenters, Shifting Facilities to ICELAND

Green Datacenters, Shifting Facilities to ICELAND — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:05:52 +0000

[...] first Geothermal powered Green data center project at Iceland is about to complete within few weeks. Iceland offers an ample supply of geothermal [...]

By: Altaree

Altaree — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:44:41 +0000

CCP hosts eve-online out of London.

But they must have their internal computers somewhere. Don’t go messing with their links back to the UK!

By: Scott Good

Scott Good — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:11:03 +0000

These guys have worked a long time to realize a vision they believed to be viable to the data center community. This is a valiant effort in being able to locate data centers beyond the real estate constraints imposed by lack of traditional utility resources
This needs to be more of a focus as we look to new frontiers of developing data centers out of traditional geographic bounders.
I do hope they get take full advantage of the geothermal system. I would hate to have to pay the utility after all that effort.

By: Datacenter på Island » Datortekniskt

Datacenter på Island » Datortekniskt — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:07:33 +0000

[...] Billig geotermisk och vattenkraftsbaserad energi samt kall luft för kylning är anledningar bakom planer på att sätta upp nya serveranläggningar på [...]