D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] OT Vision for bunker to become data centre

 

Quoting Gordon Henderson <gordon+dcglug@xxxxxxxxxx>:

On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Rob Beard wrote:

Quoting Paul Sutton <zleap@xxxxxxxxx>:

http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/business/Vision-bunker-data-centre/article-1592692-detail/article.html

Saw this on the bbc news text thing earlier,  google came up with the
following report from western morning news.

Paul


Well I guess it'll be good if it happens, it will probably create a few jobs... BUT... is it going to be competitive compared to other data centres across the UK?

I wonder too how easy it is top tap into the transatlantic cable?

It's utterly trivial, so I don't know why the fuss is about it. All you
do is run a cable to London or Manchester where the end-points are and
plug into them...

And why do people actually want stuff from the US? Most content we get
now will be from UK based servers - keep it that way. The current ping
time for me to www.google.com is 20ms - that's not in the US (It's
probably mainland europe, but definately not the US!)


You have a good point there, I don't think many of the sites I visit are in the US. Maybe one or two, most are UK sites.

The article seems to suggest they'll just patch into it, surely it's not that simple is it?

Not at all, and it really annoys me when people whinge and witter on
about all the fibre going up the A30/A38....

<snip>

If I wanted fibre from my home to London, it would go to my local BT
exchange, then to Newton Abbot, (possibly via Ashburton), then it would
join the fibre going up the A38 - (Hurrah, we've 'tapped in' to the A38
fibre), then it would come out at Bristol then to London)

You just need to pay for it all.

<snip>

It really irritates me when people just want to "tap into the fibre".
It usually means they haven't a clue about how the Internet actually
works. They might as well shine a torch down it for all the good it
will do.

Yep, this is exactly the impression I got from this article. Giving discussions on the list about data centres and fibre (and my very limited exposure to fibre kit) I didn't think it was as easy as they were making out. I'm not sure if the guy they are talking about is an 'IT Expert' as they make out and they were dumbing the quote down, or if he just doesn't understand exactly what it all entails. Considering these days an 'IT Expert' could be classed as someone who works on Helldesk, then it does make me wonder. I'd say I know what I need to know to do my job, but I wouldn't class myself as an all round 'IT Expert' as I know there are plenty of things I don't know much if anything about. I have met a few types though who say they are 'experts' because 'they work in IT', but that's getting off topic :-D

Also, their goal of wiring up every business and home to fibre, um... that's going to be expensive too I dare say. If they can pull it off then great, but I wouldn't hold my breath, unless it's going to be extremely expensive like existing fibre connections.

Very expensive. Unless you already have ducting in-place like e.g. BT
... Or use the sewers...

Yup, so I guess for BT and Virgin, then it's not going to be as costly, although from what I have read, fibre to the premises isn't going to be cheap even for BT. I wonder if Virgin could just run fibre down the ducts from the cabinets they already have to individual presmises.

But for a small local project, I guess they've got to find a lot of cash unless they can strike a deal with South West Water.

I know I may sound a bit cynical about all this, but I've heard people
talk about DC's in the SW, tapping into the fibre for a long time, and
it's not happened

I wouldn't call you cynical, I'd say more being more realistic.

Rob




--
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html