9 Data Centers: Unexpected Beauty And Creativity
, October 04, 2012 Most data centers are boring boxes--but not all. Take a look at a data center that houses a supercomputer in a chapel, or an underground data center with James Bond-styling, or a solar-powered data center, and much, much more.
The James Bond Data Center
There is an underground data center in Stockholm, Sweden, that looks like it was built for a James Bond movie. The Bahnhof Data Center is known as Pionen White Mountains, its wartime codename. Inside you can find artificial waterfalls, greenhouses, second-hand diesel engines from German submarines to provide backup power, and a horn that sounds like a sub to alert operators in case of a system malfunction. A circular, glass-walled conference room with an image of the moon on the floor overlooks the server room. The former nuclear bunker is 100 feet underground and has metal doors more than a foot thick. It took two and half years to design and build. Image courtesy of Bahnhof
