How a former command post becomes a data center
The use of former air raid shelters, bunkers and command posts for data centers is becoming popular in the world. Thus, these objects acquire a second life. Recently, we talked about the peaceful profession of a bomb shelter , in this article we will discuss the former command center of the Swiss Air Force (NATO), which is now used as an international data center, including by Russian providers.
Located deep in the mountains of Switzerland, the Deltalis data center is equipped with a multi-layered protection system while providing customers with a wide range of flexible and scalable services - from simple equipment placement to full managed services. This data center in Swiss Attinghausen occupies hundreds of square meters and meets the most stringent standards, it applies the solutions of leading vendors, it is possible to place powerful high-density equipment.
Deltalis is one of the most reliable data centers in the world. For large customers and customers with special security requirements, there are separate rooms and zones - in fact, a data center within the data center. The private zone can be separated by solid walls. In addition, customers can deploy a data center at their dedicated site with utilities that meets their specific requirements. For them, customized security solutions can be implemented, including badge readers, biometric and security systems, and intrusion detection systems.
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The peculiarity of this data center is that it is located in a former military facility, which means it is very well protected. The use of former air raid shelters, bunkers and command posts for data centers seems to be becoming popular in Europe , in Russia , and in Ukraine . This unique data center has been accepted into the International Data Center Group (Alliance of Data Centers) and obtained the highest five-star status after passing the certification procedure of EuroCloud Europe.
Hidden deep in the Swiss Alps, the bunker was created to protect against nuclear explosions and foreign invasion, but was not useful for this purpose. Today it is used to protect digital data. What does the Deltalis data center look like, how does it work? We offer you a short excursion to this “Swiss Fort Knox”.
Carved into the rock, the bunker can “live” for hundreds of years and is literally physically inaccessible, and for the protection of information is reliable as Swiss banks. Like banks, the data center is under the protection of Swiss jurisdiction, which is characterized by very strict legal rules relating to the protection of information and personal data. So it is not surprising that among his clients today are more than half of foreign companies.
The theater begins with a hanger, and the data center - with a well-guarded entrance. The perimeter of the entrance group is under full video control and the control room police guard. At the entrance to the data center, you must present a special certificate. Access to the servers can be obtained only by the one whose fingerprints are in the data center database: it contains a map of the capillary pattern on each finger and a scan of the retina. Access to the server zone is carried out strictly one by one, and access of random people is absolutely excluded.
This is where access control is performed. Passage through the cabin - strictly one by one.
Man enters, scans the fingerprint and retina. If the authentication is successful, then it is passed on. At the same time the weight of the person is controlled - multifactor authentication. And the room itself is under video surveillance.
Additional zone of control and admission of employees on a magnetic certificate.
In any serious commercial data center, there is a need for a shift of engineers who would be in the operator's room around the clock and monitor the monitoring data of all systems, and in addition, several well-trained specialists are needed - they will be responsible for troubleshooting.
The area for loading, unloading and temporary storage of equipment in the data center is separated by a grid.
This is the former command center of the Swiss Air Force (NATO). Security is the highest. The data center itself is hardly visible from the outside. Data Center protect doors weighing 3.5 tons. Moreover, the protection is complex: from radiation, electromagnetic radiation, earthquakes (there is a layer between the premises of the data center that absorbs possible shocks). Natural cooling - with water from a mountain lake, very effective. The bunker was built to use water from a mountain source and electricity from nearby hydroelectric power plants.
This bunker belonged to one of the largest command posts in Switzerland, but was decommissioned in 1950. Deltalis acquired it from the Swiss government in 2007 and opened a data center there in 2010. Massive doors protect against explosion, flooding, and radiation. Such an object, perhaps, can withstand even a nuclear strike or the use of modern electromagnetic weapons.
Labyrinths of the bunker are at a depth of hundreds of meters from the surface. This pipe is an air duct. The air conditioning system of the data center is tied to an underground lake, the pumps pump cold air and remove hot air.
Air pipes cooled by lake water. No chillers outside.
The bunker still has signs of the past days, when it belonged to the former strategic center, cells with radio signal blocking, once used for super-secret telephone calls, and faded maps of Europe and Switzerland with numerous moving flags. This control panel is the historical legacy of the NATO command center. A responsible general worked here and controlled the deployment and movement of troops.
The cooling system in the data center is dual-circuit with raised floor. The cooled air is supplied from under the raised floor to the closed cold corridor and through the perforated floor tiles and the perforated door of the racks enters the equipment, from there to the open hot corridor and is removed from the hall.
In the containment - the ranks of such closed racks. To get to the closed corridor, you need to bring a card to the scanner. On it you can go in one closed corridor, where there is a specific rack with the desired server. Everything else for access by outsiders is closed.
Now there is a Russian platform here: RUVDS hosting provider , with the support of Huawei, has commissioned a TIER IV reliability zone in the Deltalis data center. It is designed to provide customers with services of renting virtual servers VPS .
Lydia Schröder - Regional Sales Specialist Deltalis, Fedoseev Artem - Managing Director of RUVDS, Tsaplin Nikita - Managing Partner of RUVDS, Andrey Otkalyuk - Sales Specialist of the Internet provider RETN. Artem and Nikita went through all the steps to implement this interesting project - from the very idea to the personal installation of the servers, we made great efforts to ensure that the idea of ​​hosting virtual client servers in Europe was implemented as quickly as possible.
The implementation of the project in Switzerland allows for a high level of data security - technological and legal - as well as optimization of access speed for European customers due to the convenient geographical location of the containment zone.
The project turned out really unique. In addition to the containment zone, RUVDS also offers its customers certified electromagnetic and seismic protection. For many domestic companies, an additional platform abroad is also business protection. The seizure of data center equipment, illegal blocking, long-term outages - in Russia, all this has to be taken into account as risk factors when placing or renting physical or virtual servers.
At the initial stage, the area allocated for the cloud infrastructure of RUVDS tight areas is 250 sq.m. It is managed remotely from Moscow, in combination with operational control on the spot. Site power supply is reserved according to the N + 1 scheme. There are two independent substations, diesel generators, everything is controlled by automation. Servers are connected to the UPS. In the future, it is planned to offer clients a server mirroring service with a Moscow data center , which, by the way, is also built on the basis of a former military facility. The site in Switzerland will provide a wider choice of services to customers from various industries.
And prices for VDS / VPS services of a company in Switzerland will not differ from the current ones at the RUCLOUD data center in Moscow, which will allow customers to choose the most convenient location for their virtual server.
Thank you all for your attention!
Located deep in the mountains of Switzerland, the Deltalis data center is equipped with a multi-layered protection system while providing customers with a wide range of flexible and scalable services - from simple equipment placement to full managed services. This data center in Swiss Attinghausen occupies hundreds of square meters and meets the most stringent standards, it applies the solutions of leading vendors, it is possible to place powerful high-density equipment.
Deltalis is one of the most reliable data centers in the world. For large customers and customers with special security requirements, there are separate rooms and zones - in fact, a data center within the data center. The private zone can be separated by solid walls. In addition, customers can deploy a data center at their dedicated site with utilities that meets their specific requirements. For them, customized security solutions can be implemented, including badge readers, biometric and security systems, and intrusion detection systems.
')
The peculiarity of this data center is that it is located in a former military facility, which means it is very well protected. The use of former air raid shelters, bunkers and command posts for data centers seems to be becoming popular in Europe , in Russia , and in Ukraine . This unique data center has been accepted into the International Data Center Group (Alliance of Data Centers) and obtained the highest five-star status after passing the certification procedure of EuroCloud Europe.
Hidden deep in the Swiss Alps, the bunker was created to protect against nuclear explosions and foreign invasion, but was not useful for this purpose. Today it is used to protect digital data. What does the Deltalis data center look like, how does it work? We offer you a short excursion to this “Swiss Fort Knox”.
Carved into the rock, the bunker can “live” for hundreds of years and is literally physically inaccessible, and for the protection of information is reliable as Swiss banks. Like banks, the data center is under the protection of Swiss jurisdiction, which is characterized by very strict legal rules relating to the protection of information and personal data. So it is not surprising that among his clients today are more than half of foreign companies.
The theater begins with a hanger, and the data center - with a well-guarded entrance. The perimeter of the entrance group is under full video control and the control room police guard. At the entrance to the data center, you must present a special certificate. Access to the servers can be obtained only by the one whose fingerprints are in the data center database: it contains a map of the capillary pattern on each finger and a scan of the retina. Access to the server zone is carried out strictly one by one, and access of random people is absolutely excluded.
This is where access control is performed. Passage through the cabin - strictly one by one.
Man enters, scans the fingerprint and retina. If the authentication is successful, then it is passed on. At the same time the weight of the person is controlled - multifactor authentication. And the room itself is under video surveillance.
Additional zone of control and admission of employees on a magnetic certificate.
In any serious commercial data center, there is a need for a shift of engineers who would be in the operator's room around the clock and monitor the monitoring data of all systems, and in addition, several well-trained specialists are needed - they will be responsible for troubleshooting.
The area for loading, unloading and temporary storage of equipment in the data center is separated by a grid.
This is the former command center of the Swiss Air Force (NATO). Security is the highest. The data center itself is hardly visible from the outside. Data Center protect doors weighing 3.5 tons. Moreover, the protection is complex: from radiation, electromagnetic radiation, earthquakes (there is a layer between the premises of the data center that absorbs possible shocks). Natural cooling - with water from a mountain lake, very effective. The bunker was built to use water from a mountain source and electricity from nearby hydroelectric power plants.
This bunker belonged to one of the largest command posts in Switzerland, but was decommissioned in 1950. Deltalis acquired it from the Swiss government in 2007 and opened a data center there in 2010. Massive doors protect against explosion, flooding, and radiation. Such an object, perhaps, can withstand even a nuclear strike or the use of modern electromagnetic weapons.
Labyrinths of the bunker are at a depth of hundreds of meters from the surface. This pipe is an air duct. The air conditioning system of the data center is tied to an underground lake, the pumps pump cold air and remove hot air.
Air pipes cooled by lake water. No chillers outside.
The bunker still has signs of the past days, when it belonged to the former strategic center, cells with radio signal blocking, once used for super-secret telephone calls, and faded maps of Europe and Switzerland with numerous moving flags. This control panel is the historical legacy of the NATO command center. A responsible general worked here and controlled the deployment and movement of troops.
The cooling system in the data center is dual-circuit with raised floor. The cooled air is supplied from under the raised floor to the closed cold corridor and through the perforated floor tiles and the perforated door of the racks enters the equipment, from there to the open hot corridor and is removed from the hall.
In the containment - the ranks of such closed racks. To get to the closed corridor, you need to bring a card to the scanner. On it you can go in one closed corridor, where there is a specific rack with the desired server. Everything else for access by outsiders is closed.
Now there is a Russian platform here: RUVDS hosting provider , with the support of Huawei, has commissioned a TIER IV reliability zone in the Deltalis data center. It is designed to provide customers with services of renting virtual servers VPS .
Lydia Schröder - Regional Sales Specialist Deltalis, Fedoseev Artem - Managing Director of RUVDS, Tsaplin Nikita - Managing Partner of RUVDS, Andrey Otkalyuk - Sales Specialist of the Internet provider RETN. Artem and Nikita went through all the steps to implement this interesting project - from the very idea to the personal installation of the servers, we made great efforts to ensure that the idea of ​​hosting virtual client servers in Europe was implemented as quickly as possible.
The implementation of the project in Switzerland allows for a high level of data security - technological and legal - as well as optimization of access speed for European customers due to the convenient geographical location of the containment zone.
The project turned out really unique. In addition to the containment zone, RUVDS also offers its customers certified electromagnetic and seismic protection. For many domestic companies, an additional platform abroad is also business protection. The seizure of data center equipment, illegal blocking, long-term outages - in Russia, all this has to be taken into account as risk factors when placing or renting physical or virtual servers.
At the initial stage, the area allocated for the cloud infrastructure of RUVDS tight areas is 250 sq.m. It is managed remotely from Moscow, in combination with operational control on the spot. Site power supply is reserved according to the N + 1 scheme. There are two independent substations, diesel generators, everything is controlled by automation. Servers are connected to the UPS. In the future, it is planned to offer clients a server mirroring service with a Moscow data center , which, by the way, is also built on the basis of a former military facility. The site in Switzerland will provide a wider choice of services to customers from various industries.
And prices for VDS / VPS services of a company in Switzerland will not differ from the current ones at the RUCLOUD data center in Moscow, which will allow customers to choose the most convenient location for their virtual server.
Thank you all for your attention!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/320218/
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