Nowadays, most companies are working on their data center projects to make them cost-effective. Thus, most data centers look similar to each other. But some of them can be really weird or strange looking, or have very unusual features. Here are some of the world’s most unusual data centers.
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CyberBunker
CyberBunker data center was built inside a nuclear bunker which is located in the Netherlands. The nuclear bunker was built during the cold war and it was operated by NATO. The company stated that the data center had the capacity to keep working for 10 years without and outside help. However, some servers in CyberBunker hosted The Pirate Bay and a Wikileaks mirror. The facility is also accused of hosting multiple malware and scammers. In 2002, a fire broke out in the facility and after it was put out, an illegal drug laboratory was found inside the bunker and three men faced three-year jail sentences each.
Yahoo’s chicken coop
When designing a data center, implementing an efficient cooling system is very important. Yahoo overcame this obstacle with an unusual method. The company established a chicken coop-based design data center in New York in 2010. The design allows airflow to be drawn through the coop from the elevated floor to keep the chickens cool. Yahoo used this method to cool their servers instead of chickens and it led to another data center with a similar design in 2016.
Nautilus’ floating data center
With its patented design water cooling technology, Nautilus delivers a waterborne data center, which is also less expensive than traditional land-based facilities. The data center is completely located on vessels. The first commercial Nautilus data center is named “Eli M.” and the will be commissioned fall 2020.
Microsoft’s undersea data center
Microsoft announced its data center design which is located under the sea in 2015. Microsoft’s patent applications show that the tech giant is planning to build an artificial reef of data centers. Microsoft is planning to place servers closer to more people if they are submerged in the coasts of major population centers.
Lefdal Mine data center
Data center companies sometimes convert old buildings to data centers, however, it is unusual to turn a mine to a data center. The Lefdal mine data center is located by a fjord on Norway’s northwest coast and has over 120,000 square meters of space. The mine has a power usage effectiveness of between 1.08 and 1.1 for a 5KW rack.
Swiss Fort Knox
Swiss Fort Knox includes two independent data centers in the Swiss Alps. The facility provides protection against civil and military threats. Swiss Fort Knox is designed to provide long-term access to assets.
Facebook’s arctic data center
Facebook‘s Swedish data center is located 70 miles from the Arctic Circle. The facility uses cold air surrounding the data center to cool the equipment inside the facility. According to the company, the 27,000 square meter facility was one of the most efficient and sustainable data centers when it was built in 2013.