[109563] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: an over-the-top data center
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Mon Dec 1 14:19:59 2008
From: Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>
To: Danny McPherson <danny@tcb.net>
In-Reply-To: <7A8D1E7B-78E9-4629-A0F6-72BFFE7B019C@tcb.net>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 11:19:43 -0800
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On 1-Dec-08, at 10:27 AM, Danny McPherson wrote:
> On a related noted, some have professed that adapting old
> ships into data centers would provide eco-friendly secure
> data center solutions.
Your data connection to shore is going to be tenuous at best. One good
blow strong enough to make you drag anchor and you kiss goodbye your
fibre trunk connection. Putting that back in service is a bit more
than a four hour splice job.
An alternative would be to run a microwave link to shore, but I'm not
sure I would want to bet the farm on the mechanics necessary to keep
the dish aligned.
And what do you do when it's time to haul out and paint the bottom?!?
Then there is the matter of power. It wouldn't be very hard to DOS the
entire operation by taking out the fuel barges.
I suppose you could permanently tie up to a pier, but at that point
you're just a building with a leaky basement. I don't see how anyone
could claim this is more secure than a purpose-built data centre. (And
even at anchor, how do you stop someone from taking you out with
something as simple as a drill?)
--lyndon (mailing via Wimax from S/V Bandido I, at the dock in
Vancouver :-)
