20101108

Nuclear Bunker Houses World's Toughest Server Farm

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via Slashdot: Hardware by samzenpus on 11/3/10

Lanxon writes "Deep inside the Swiss Alps, a former nuclear bunker is now the ultimate hiding place for the world's most sensitive secrets — the Swiss Fort Knox. In a lengthy feature, Wired gains access to the server farm designed to survive a full-scale military attack. From the article: 'As we punch our codes at the checkpoint, the yellow door opens into what looks like a city of server towers, their green LEDs flickering as a technician in a white jumpsuit runs diagnostic checks. [Later], we are in a dimly lit tunnel next to what looks like a metal oven door carved into the side of the rock. "These are expansion rooms in case you have an atomic explosion outside," Christoph Oschwald, a retired Swiss paratrooper turned contractor, says. The thinking behind the rooms, he explains, is that if there were a nuclear explosion, the rush of high-pressure air would fill them through vents in the opposite side. Then, the vents would snap shut, trapping the air before it had a chance of damaging the fortress. "There is a lot of protection you can't see," he says. We stroll past an intricate network of insulated pipelines that carry water up from the underground glacial lake to the cooling system.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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