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back to article Cork data centre will offer super-speedy US to Europe data times

An Irish property company is expected to secure planning permission for a 25,550 square meter facility on the outskirts of Cork City that will offer much reduced data latency times between the US and Europe. JCD Group’s rapid movement with plans for the centre on the site of a disused electronics factory in the city is in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Redeveloping an existing site was a clever move...

    .... while Apple's snake will to destroy as much of any Garden of Eden as they could is truly a silly one. The need of being so far from any nuclear plant just looks a stupid excuse. They just want to spend the less they could of the giant pile of money they're sitting upon.

    6 1 Reply
    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      Re: Redeveloping an existing site was a clever move...

      From the Business Insider article linked in TFA:

      "world events such as the failure of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima in 2011 highlighted the need to consider additional criteria".

      For reference, the Fukushima exclusion zone is 20 miles (32km) so exactly one tenth the distance they want. Not to mention, Ireland (and the British Isles) aren't exactly known for their earthquakes and/or tsunamis.

      0 0 Reply
  2. JimmyPage Silver badge
    WTF?

    But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

    I would have thought Apple execs - whatever their characters - were not in the same league of morons as my in-laws.

    Clearly wrong.

    If anyone owns any Apple stock, they may wish to diversify, if this is the level of intelligence at the top.

    They may as well have suggested it'll be little-people-powered ....

    8 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

      Perhaps they might like to consider measuring the distance from their new Cuipertino HQ and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power station -- looks to be less than 320km. I'm sure someone's going to be in big trouble for building a new HQ in a location they can't use!

      2 0 Reply
      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

        Don't forget all the Radioactive substances at the Lawrence-livermore site. Connected to SF via the BART.

        Personally, the whole of the Bay IT Industry area could disappear in a giant quake for all I care (people excepted).

        Google is even closer to the San-Andreas than Apple is.

        Drove through there yeterday. Lots of carparks on the freeways and hardly a Hybrid/Leccy vehicle in site apart from the Prius. I see more in the US than here... The only leccy car was a Chevy Volt with a vanity place 'GASGONE'.

        2 0 Reply
        1. ckm5
          Reply Icon

          Re: But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

          Hhhh, dunno where you drove, but I live here in SV and see tons of Teslas (which always suprises as they are expensive). There is easily a plural majority of hybrids, sometimes freeways look like a Prius parking lot. Also, a Volt is not an electric car, it's a hybrid (gas engine onboard). Way more hybrids & electric cars than I've ever seen anywhere in Europe...

          As far as the Bay Area IT businesses going under, good luck using the internet post that event. Because Google, Cisco, Juniper, Intel, Apple, UltraDNS, NetFlix, HP, Oracle, Facebook & thousands of other companies just don't matter....

          0 1 Reply
    2. joeW
      Reply Icon

      Re: But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

      Well I assume it was originally "200 miles", but they converted to KM because that's (officially at least) what we use in Ireland - that solves the mystery of why such a specific distance.

      Why 200 miles in the first place, i have no idea. Even the Chernobyl exclusion zone is only a fraction of that.

      0 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        answered wrong part of question :)

        I wasn't asking why *320* km.

        I was asking *why* <any distance at all> ?

        :)

        I would add a smiley icon, but that would out me.

        3 0 Reply
      2. imanidiot Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

        Its because some radiophobic twat with no clue what a nuclear installation IS or what can realistically happen at one (very dependant on type) decided what a minimum safe distance should be to avoid being impacted by any sort of exclusion zone...

        In other words it was pulled from the air and is based on pure bovine excrement.

        12 0 Reply
        1. Fatman
          Reply Icon
          Joke

          Re: But *why* 320 km from a nuclear installation ?

          <quote>In other words it was pulled out from the air someone's ass and is based on pure bovine excrement.</quote>

          FTFY

          5 1 Reply
  3. Chris Miller

    Confused (again)

    the Cork site’s proximity to the Hibernia Network subsea cable, which the developers are banking on to deliver the shortest available data latency between Europe and the US East Coast

    I understand that it's 600km closer to the East Coast than (e.g.) LINX, which might reduce latency by 2 or 3 ms, less than 10% of a typical transatlantic crossing. But you can only be doing one of two things:

    1. Co-location of servers for your US customers, in which case (if latency is that critical) why not co-lo in a US data centre?

    2. Or using it for a data hop, in which case you save 2 or 3 ms across the pond but lose 2 or 3 ms by the extra travel time to Cork.

    So it seems it would only make a difference for Cork-based enterprises. I must be missing something, but what?

    3 1 Reply
    1. rh587
      Reply Icon

      Re: Confused (again)

      1. Co-location of servers for your US customers, in which case (if latency is that critical) why not co-lo in a US data centre?

      Regulatory reasons? I'm thinking US-based access to data which - for regulatory reasons - has to be geographically located in the EU?

      I'm not sure what, but as data sovereignty becomes increasingly important, I'm sure M$/Google/Faceache/Apple/someone has some data they need to store in the EU but which they want to be able to access/process/analyse from the Americas.

      2 1 Reply
      1. Chris Miller
        Reply Icon

        Thanks, rh587

        Good point, and this may well be the explanation. I'm still surprised that there's such data where a few ms reduced latency is vitally important, a feature I tend to associate with high-speed trading.

        2 0 Reply
      2. Fatman
        Reply Icon

        Re: Confused (again)

        <quote>I'm not sure what, but as data sovereignty becomes increasingly important, I'm sure M$/Google/Faceache/Apple/someone has some data they need to store in the EU but which they want to be able to access/process/analyse from the Americas.</quote>

        That may be well and good, but, I bet that if the USofA really wants that data, they will find some excuse to send in the marines.

        Two star general (to a lieutenant): "Lieutenant, that data center supports terrism, you are ordered to capture it."

        PFL (Pimply Faced Lieutenant): "Sir, yes, sir!!!!" (Forgetting that he is about to invade a sovereign country.)

        1 0 Reply
        1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Confused (again)

          The locals will direct the invaders to say... Morans and give them Guinnes and Smoked Salmon.

          Then the marines will be asked, 'Now fellas, do you really want to invade us now? Another pint for our new American friends'.

          The invasion will fail miserably and the marines will apparently disappear into a peat bog but turn up tending bar in Dublin.

          2 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Confused (again)

            Given the average American's aptitude for geography, Isn't it more likely the marines will actually invade Holland and that their precision weapon will then blow up something in Denmark?

            0 0 Reply

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    rollocks

    "An Irish property company is expected to secure planning permission for a 25,550 square meter facility on the outskirts of Cork City that will offer the same data latency times between the US and Cork available now. A technical spokesperson added `we have, as yet, been unable to increase the speed of light, so the marketing company spokesperson is spouting crap " FTFY

    1 0 Reply
  6. Pen-y-gors

    No help for us Brits

    <poliitical rant mode on>

    If the lunatics take over the asylum and we leave the EU, then we won't be able to transfer data to the US via an EU country, as the Tories will have dismantled all the data-protection legislation! Alternatively we could keep EU-compliant data protection legislation, but without having any say in what that actually contains. Seems a bit silly, no?

    2 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No help for us Brits

      Or you could develop your own data privacy legislation, and confuse things further by having yet another regulatory domain to contend with. You might make a copy of the current EU laws if you think those are a good start, but then you'd go your own way from there. Obviously they wouldn't just have the law say "our law is whatever the EU says it is", thus outsourcing changes in your laws to a body of which you'd no longer be a member.

      I suspect this will all end up being governed by treaties in the long run, as small companies will be unable to compete in a world where you have more and more regulatory domains, each demanding that local data reside locally, each with different laws governing the handling, etc.

      None of this is a problem if you are Google, Apple or Facebook, they have unlimited piles of money and can never have enough data processing / data storage anyway. All these laws are as much about trying to force some investment in your backyard as they are about actually protecting data. Or preventing your citizens from escaping your surveillance and censorship in the case of China.

      0 1 Reply
  7. madmalc

    Wylfa

    Is a nuclear power station, not a reprocessing plant. They've got a really nice walk through a forest to a viewing platform, though that's not as much fun as going inside. It was shut down in 2015 but luckily they're building a new one soon.

    0 0 Reply
  8. SimonC

    Interested to know how much latency will be improved by, might make gaming with east coast americans more viable.

    0 0 Reply

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