Companies Look To Bunker-Style Hosting Sites For Protection
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With names like The Underground and InfoBunker, their purpose is fairly clear—to offer total protection against any and all disasters that might bring down a regular data center. Petrino points to financial firms, utility companies, and any publicly traded company that is subject to Sarbanes-Oxley and other government regulations as being prime customers for hardened data centers. Continental Airlines, for example, has a backup data center inside the Montgomery Westland bunker (www.westlandbunker.com) in Montgomery, Texas, which is a former nuclear fallout shelter.
Other companies don’t have such sensitive operations as an airline or bank but still want the security of having an indestructible backup location. Wikia, which operates a consumer publishing platform, went looking for a disaster recovery center in 2007 and wound up renting space inside the United States Secure Hosting Center (www.usshc.com) in Monticello, Iowa. The Iowa center offers a central location between Wikia’s primary San Jose and secondary New Jersey data centers and pretty much guarantees that Wikia sites won’t be down should there be a major disaster on either coast.
“We wanted a disaster recovery location mainly to protect against fire and earthquake in the Bay area. Our entire business relies on being online, so we need to be able to continue to function if [our] primary data center goes away,” says Artur Bergman, the VP of engineering and operations at Wikia.
There were other factors behind the decision, namely service levels and costs. Bergman notes that the real estate costs are lower in Iowa, compared to California and New Jersey, leading to more attractive rates for data center space. But the fact that the center was underground and essentially disaster-proof was also an attractive feature. “If we are spending that money for disaster recovery, we felt it should fit that function as well as possible,” says Bergman.
Behind The BunkerThe majority of the data center bunkers in the U.S. were originally built as either bomb shelters or bomb-proof communications facilities for the government during the Cold War or are inside old mines or caves. USSHC, for instance, was originally one of several bunker locations established by the U.S. government to protect military and government telecommunications links in the event of a foreign attack on the U.S. Iron Mountain’s The Underground, the oldest bunker data center in the U.S., was formerly an iron ore mine.
Computer data and communications are at least as important as electricity to most businesses, and a disaster could put this important data at risk. Considering this, the idea of putting the corporate server inside a bunker may sound pretty good to many CIOs. Even fairly small-scale local disasters can quickly create a surge in interest for disaster-proof data centers. When Iowa experienced flooding last spring, and hundreds of businesses in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids found themselves with waves lapping at their doorsteps, USSHC began fielding a deluge of inquiries, often from businesses looking to move in that week.
“It often takes that kind of an event to get people interested,” says Isaac Helgens, project and marketing director at USSHC. “People often put off colocating because they love their servers, they want to hold them close. But these days, it’s not necessary to have your servers right with you. Anything you can do locally, you can do remotely.”
Helgens notes that a big advantage of a bunker data center is not so much its underground location—though that is important in the event of a hurricane or tornado—but that it is an independent structure, not shared with any other tenant. “We’ve seen good above-ground data centers, with good structures and fire detection, but their own neighbors on other floors presented a high risk. If you have a call center above your data center, for example, then you have a fire suppression system up there that may go off and wreak havoc on the floor below it. There’s also plumbing that can leak. Or another tenant could be running a fireworks factory for all you know,” says Helgens.
What You Get In A BunkerUnderground data centers typically feature 3- or 4-foot thick walls, fire proofing, and fire detection. Generators, fuel tanks, and cooling systems are usually either underground or just under the surface, to protect them from being destroyed by wind or lightening.
Besides the disaster-proof infrastructure, such centers also have high levels of service and security. InfoBunker (www.infobunker.com), in Des Moines, Iowa, offers biometric keypads and pan and zoom security cameras. Cavern Technologies (www.caverntechnologies.com) in Lenexa, Kan., has security guards, smart card access, and motion detectors. Iron Mountain’s The Underground in Pennsylvania provides armed guards, magnetometers, X-ray scanners, and visitor escorts.
As with regular data center providers, bunker centers provide various concierge services and data center staff to help customers manage their equipment. Should a customer at USSHC need to switch its operations to its backup site at USSHC, it provides the staff with work facilities, office space, phones, and other standard equipment. While it assumes that the customer’s staff will come in to man the backup operation, USSHC provides support staff to help get started.
Although the costs of security, services, and infrastructure tend to be higher with a bunker, there are savings in other areas. For instance, underground data centers are naturally cooler and can take advantage of geothermal energy. “Once you go underground, you have a much lower, steady temperature. It’s the same benefit a cave offers you. I’ve seen several reports that put the savings at upwards of 30% per year in energy usage,” says Petrino. Depending upon the region, utility rates may be cheaper, as well. In Iowa, for instance, customers can get power for $12 to $15 per amp, according to Helgens. At the same time, bandwidth rates may be higher if the bunker is in a remote location, as many are. USSHC pays two to three times the rates for bandwidth that they would if they were located in a major city.
For Wikia staff to fly to the Iowa data center, they would have to pay over $850 per person, with at least one connection. Instead, they have opted to fly into Chicago and drive the extra five hours by rental car. Because they only do it once or twice a year, it’s not a major issue, but for companies that want closer contact with their backup sites, it could be a problem.
For most customers considering a bunker, however, it’s the remote location that adds to the appeal, as it means there is less of a chance for a terrorist attack or security breach. New bunker data centers continue to be opened in rural or small-town spots—such as in tiny Hastings, Neb., where the newly launched Prairie Bunkers (www.prairiebunkers.com) plans to turn 184 WWII naval ammunition storage bunkers into individual data centers. Other companies are working on various underground data center projects, most hosted but a few being built for internal company use. Petrino says he’s aware of at least three financial firms and a government entity that are building their own bunkers.
“As the criticality of data comes into play for more and more businesses, offsite tape storage alone won’t be enough,” he says. “Clients are pushing for more and better data backup. Tapes get lost after all. So if you have these types of [online, secured] facilities, you can be more competitive.”
by Sue Hildreth
| Data Center | Location | URL |
| Cavern Technologies | Lenexa, Kan. | www.caverntechnologies.com |
| DataChambers | Winston-Salem, N.C. | www.datachambers.com |
| InfoBunker | Des Moines, Iowa | www.infobunker.com |
| Iron Mountain | Butler County, Pa. | www.ironmountain.com |
| Montgomery Westland | Montgomery, Texas | www.westlandbunker.com |
| Prairie Bunkers | Hastings, Neb. | www.prairiebunkers.com |
| StrataSpace | Louisville, Ky. | www.strataspace.com |
| SpringNet Underground | Springfield, Mo. | www.springnetunderground.net |
| US Secure Hosting Center | Monticello, Iowa | www.usshc.com |
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