Probably mostly marketing. This would be one place that data archives might survive nuclear and small to medium asteroid impacts, assuming it is water tight and really strong submarine doors. I did not see any bar (pressure) ratings.
There are a handful of companies that have underground data-centers, but I think it's mostly hype. Creating functional (real) bunkers at that scale is very expensive. When I look at bunkers, the first things I look for is how many bars of pressure they are rated for. A nuclear bunker must be rated for at least 8 bars. Getting permits for underground generators and fuel tanks is also very expensive.
The fact there's not much else to do in this place, the land purchase must have been dirt-cheap compared to ground-level installations in downtown Paris. So, if they needed to be close to decision centers, that's a very good choice.
If you expect humans to keep the servers running, then certainly a majority of space would be required for food, storage, waste, supplies, water, more water, air tanks, air filtration systems, grow lights and green house. You would also need a medical staff and counselors. Oh and lots of books and a place to sleep. :-)
The bunker was dug, but they had to go through a ton of work to reinforce it, pour a foundation capable of holding server racks without disturbing the existing structure, waterproof it, and more.
Maybe the seemingly advanced building techniques they described in the blog post are also required to build an above-ground datacenter. Or the cost of doing it (and doing it below ground) isn't drastically greater.
Absolutely. Building from scratch is tens to hundreds of millions. Former military bunkers were paid with tax money. :-) The new owner is just paying for inspections, retrofit, modernization, etc...
> With city space ever scarcer and more expensive, but latency requirements only increasing, companies have been looking at innovative ways of getting data centres closer to the action.
It doesn't specifically say this is the reason Scaleway did it, but it could make sense if there's a bunch of tech firms located nearby and the above-ground real estate is expensive.
I bet the biggest driver was they probably acquired the property really cheap. Building it into a data center probably wasn't any more expensive than an above-ground property.
I came to Scaleway from Linode since they had very competitive pricing and generally always thought they were pretty nice.
That is, of-course, until they decided to up the price on my tier by almost 60% with very short notice. Same box I'd been running for years, no upgrades or nothing aside from a shiny new price tag...
In Paris the word "catacombs" is used in a larger sense than ossuaries. It also covers the huge network of old quarries, mostly on the left bank. They pretty popular with urban explorers ("cataphiles"). The data center is built in one of these quarries turned into a shelter.
I've wanted to use Scaleway as their prices seem way better than DigitalOcean/Vultr for larger/bare metal servers, but they just lack ... everything from their API. It's one of most poorly documented VM APIs I've ever seen.
They also have no managed DNS! You've got to setup your own DNS servers!
The server setup does seem tool though. Also, how did a Register link get through? I thought that site was banned on HN.
I kind of agree with you, but also with the parent - because it's no longer pretending to be a red top.
Very soon after El Reg was bought by the Daily Mail, there was a very noticeable change in the writing. It had always been snarky and sarcastic, but in amusing way - afterwards it was snarky and sarcastic, but in a kind of hateful, "fake outrage", unmistakable Daily Mail kind of way.
I'd read El Reg almost every day for a decade before the Dailly Mail bought them, but I just couldn't stand it afterwards. A real shame.
Hi, I work at El Reg. Just wanted to say we're not owned by the Daily Mail. I used to work for the Daily Mail Group, funnily enough, leaving in 2011 to join The Reg. But, anyway, no: El Reg isn't owned by the Daily Mail. It's the same four co-owners and the same independent publication.
(If you haven't read us for a while, then please why not try us again. We're still snarky but I like to think our sarcasm and skepticism is precisely deployed as and when it's needed rather than as a scattergun. And above all, puns, jokes, and irreverence aside, we strive to be technical and correct.)
I love Scaleway, I constantly have at least 2 instances that I use for personal experimentation and learning ( I went up to 7 when playing around with mesos/consul/marathon ) and I helped a business massively reduce their costs ( by like 90%) by migrating from GoDaddy to self managed Scaleway.
Scaleway DNS API is currently in early access. GA in a couple months.
During the event mentioned in ElReg, the keynote listed about 90-100 new features/products scheduled between now & early next year, amongst them DNS apis ;)
This is very cool, but it wont be as fun when water starts to drop on electrical equipment. And cooling will probably be an issue too. But I guess it's worth it if you get a central location in a major city.
