back to article Nuclear fallout shelter becomes cloud storage bunker

French hosting company Online.net has revealed its new data centre resides in a former nuclear fallout shelter. The company explains that its new bit barn was once a “passive defence shelter” named Abri Lefebvre built in 1937 atop a disused quarry out in the fifteenth Arrondisement. In 1946 authorities decided Paris needed to …

  1. RIBrsiq
    Trollface

    “Our storage algorithm allows us to regenerate any corrupted or lost data.”

    Yes, but what if the entire site is lost...?

    1. Calleb III

      Re: “Our storage algorithm allows us to regenerate any corrupted or lost data.”

      Irrelevant, as this is cold storage offering and hardly anyone is looking for intersite redundancy of that

      1. RIBrsiq
        Facepalm

        @Calleb

        See icon. For both the original and this post, in fact.

  2. Nick Kew

    An increasingly popular model

    Thebunker hosting here in Blighty has been around quite a few years, on similar sites acquired from the military. I daresay they'd be happy to explain the advantages if asked. I understand security features quite prominently in the business case.

    Coincidence? Or is the acquisition of military sites by hosting companies a match made in heaven?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: An increasingly popular model

      Coincidence? Or is the acquisition of military sites by hosting companies a match made in heaven?

      Underground. Has built in physical security with concrete and steel and limited access... maybe some serious concertina wire. Access to power and possibly built in back up power (or at least the facilities. Yep.. made in heaven.

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: An increasingly popular model

        Don't forget the naturally low ambient temperature of being in a cave...

        Although it does make it a little tricky to get rid of excess heat if you do push it... I wonder if the Paris site thought about using the discovered well as a heat soak...?

        (Now I've just got to shift the mental image of scalding hot geezers appearing on the French landscape from my mind!)

        1. Arthur the cat Silver badge
          Headmaster

          Re: An increasingly popular model

          Now I've just got to shift the mental image of scalding hot geezers appearing on the French landscape from my mind!

          Superheated old men appearing all over France would be a tad disconcerting.

          I think you mean "geyser"

        2. John Smith 19 Gold badge

          "Don't forget the naturally low ambient temperature of being in a cave..."

          Actually it's more like the naturally constant temperature once you're about about 3m underground.

          This simplifies your thermal management planning

          But you've missed a real USP for the French.

          It's not American owned.

          No PATRIOT Act applies. Although no doubt "Le Organs" will want a look

          1. HereIAmJH

            Re: "Don't forget the naturally low ambient temperature of being in a cave..."

            It simplifies thermal management planning in that you have a static base line to work against. You'll still have to remove any heat that you generate. You just don't have to worry about outside temperatures altering your cooling requirements.

            I used to work for a company located in caves and we definitely needed air conditioning for the computer room. We also had to use vent fans in the warehouse to remove heat from electric forklifts and machinery. Just think of a room with a huge amount of insulation.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nuclear shelter used mainly for bullshit advertisement

    I really don't care if my hosting is into a ex-nuclear bunker or on a server located on the bottom of Mariana Trench, the main question is if the company/personnel of the hosting are trustworthy.

    I recently moved out from an UK host provider, I had issues with cardDAV (horde on cPanel ) then the tech support were unable to find the problem and asked me my cPanel (in fact my account's) password!

    1. Alister

      Re: nuclear shelter used mainly for bullshit advertisement

      the tech support were unable to find the problem and asked me my cPanel (in fact my account's) password!

      I don't see that this is something to get worked up over?

      Wouldn't it be worse if tech support had their own login to your cPanel, or, even worse, were just able to look up your password for themselves?

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Storage in Paris

    Nice to know that the data will be stored in a nuclear bunker. Unfortunately, the bunker is in Paris, a city with a history of terrorist attacks and no end of Hollywood destruction.

    I would think it would be a better idea to set up a data storage area just about anywhere else. From the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne to the livestock-infested areas of its center, there are many places in France to choose from where a terrorist would have zero chances of being interested in blowing something up, mainly because there's only cows or crops as far as the eye can see. And nobody would think of nuking crops - that's counterproductive.

    Of course, most of those places are likely boring as hell because there's naught to do outside of work hours, but we're talking about data safety, not employee entertainment. Put a data center in that kind of area. With all the money put into rehabilitating an underground bunker in Paris, I'm sure you could have built a data center in the Meuse without any more trouble than occasionally having to wait for a cow to move out of the way.

    1. andy gibson

      Re: Storage in Paris

      I think the data is safe, the inbred morons that is ISIS only targets people, not buildings of strategic important.

      1. druck Silver badge

        Re: Storage in Paris

        The data might be safe underground, but you won't be able to access it if the employee's can't get in while the city is in lock down.

    2. Bill Gray

      Re: Storage in Paris

      Despite all the hype about terrorism, you're much more likely to be hit by lightning (for example) than by terrorists. This is usually mentioned with reference to danger to humans, but I expect that the mundane dangers to data centers (flood, fire, vandalism, human error, etc.) are much, much greater than those from terrorists.

      In that context, having your data underground doesn't sound unreasonable. I'd want a site that drains via gravity (i.e., there's a downslope near enough to let that happen). With that proviso, seems to me as you'd be reasonably safe from the fire, flood, and vandalism issues. If you figure out a way to fix humans, please let me know; I make errors routinely, and would be very interested in a solution to that problem.

    3. Dwarf
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Storage in Paris

      Nuff said ..

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    What about flooding risk?

    1. Dwarf
      Joke

      #Syntax.

      Pah, Flooding, c'mon, turn on the marketing opportunities - its just water cooled in an unconventional manner. Apparently its all the rage. You could even add a bit of coloured dye and place some strategic lighting for effect.

      You could also market it as green, since there is zero risk of fire, and has no harmful gasses in the fire suppression systems - just hydrogen and oxygen.

      Then, you could re-define the server support job spec, so that the support team get a diving suit and air bottle.

      There are a couple of minor problems still to fix.

      - Conductivity of water due to minerals - particularly with high voltage AC

      - Polluting the local water system.

      But I'm sure we can gloss over those minor inconveniences.

  6. Dead Parrot

    So, these are the tunnels...

    ...That the French shut down because they were worried the entire city of Paris would collapse into them because of geological instability? Yeah, I want my data stored there.

  7. G R Goslin

    What about the heat?

    What about the heat generated by the plant? Underground facilities are cool, but that's because the rock is cool. But heat does not dissipate through rock very well. Particularly concrete reinforced rock. So, there is zero cooling effect from the surroundings, but an increased problem of transporting this heat to the surface. So, where's the gain?

    1. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: What about the heat?

      The obvious method would be via a chilled water loop. One advantage of this would be that the pipework could also go to houses and offices to provide them with heating in the winter.

  8. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Pros and cons discussed above aside, in the least this is a proper lair for their BOFH.

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