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So while I am strongly opposed to the big AI datacentres, I'm not going to be enjoying any schadenfreude about the fire in Almere. Datacentres like this one are critical infrastructure for out modern society. We need a certain number of them, that are well positioned, properly run, and really crucially not on fire.
For now tho, we wait for the post mortem on this fire, & see when they can get the servers back up. I need to make a GP appointment...
AI datacentres are still fucking bad tho.
6/6
Rather a lot of organisations have equipment in this DC. One of the headlines is that Utrecht University is closed today cos their systems are in NorthC Almere, and what makes it doubly bad is they can't even unlock doors cos the access control system is offline. On a personal level I can't make a GP appointment cos the GP surgery uses systems hosted in the DC that's on fire. It looks like this one isn't as severe as when OVH went up in flames taking servers with them. But...
2/n
It's gonna take time to fix. At a guess it's gonna be a week at least before service is back.
The DC on fire, NorthC in Almere, isn't an AI datacentre. It's just a run of the mill DC used by various companies to host their equipment in a secure facility with reliable power, and good safety systems.
"Why don't companies host that stuff on site?" Some will ask. Well for starters, getting the power connection necessary in an average office is hard. But then the DC offers a lot more.
3/n
To provide reliable power a good DC will have multiple Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), multiple Generators, Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus (VESDA), multiple diverse fibre connections etc...
Getting all of that in a small office for a small company is expensive and complicated. When you can just rent a rack or even part of a rack in a DC somewhere.
The mistake tho, that a lot of organisations make, is choosing to use just one DC. Which it seems UU, and my GP has.
4/n
But, designing your system to work across multiple sites is hard. Really hard. And the skills to do it are somewhat atrophying in the industry as organisations opt to just "stick it in the cloud". And lose the skills necessary to build proper self hosted redundant systems.
And I say this as someone who's build a career of more than a quarter century building such systems. In fact I've had equipment in other NorthC datacentres for almost a decade.
5/n
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