EMC has partnered with Iron Mountain this April to build underground data centers, designed to keep back-ups of critical information. Their flagship underground Pennsylvania data center is 220 feet beneath the earth, and has recently picked up a new tenant: Seagate. EMC and Iron Mountain function both as vendors and resellers of their services to groups that want to store data underground.
The Pittsburgh data center is technically on the outskirts of the city in Boyers, inside of a former limestone mine. Iron Mountain's expertise in storing important documents has an impressive history within that complex – it stores photo archives, U.S. Government files and tape reels for movie studios.
Underground data centers are still fairly rare, but there are a few others. Notable ones include:
- The Bahnhoff Pionen "James Bond Villain" data center, which is a former military bunker 100 feet underground.
- The U.S. Secure Hosting Center, which hosts web infrastructure for the Wikimedia Foundation.
- The Mountain Complex, which is a Missouri data center that hosts backup for financial institutions.
- The InfoBunker, a 65,000 square foot underground Iowa data center built in a decommissioned Air Force Bunker designed to withstand nuclear explosions.
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