Geography of the Internet
The current issue of the Economist has a special feature on corporate IT, namely cloud computing. Key snip:
This is fascinating, and a key element of any future history exercise involved in simulation or forecasting. Thinking about the geography of IT - from long-haul choke-points to optimal locations for server farms - should be on the mind of national security strategists. It would be lots of fun to find out what Microsoft’s metrics are - though I’m sure they’re closely held.…cheap electricity is only one, albeit important, criterion for choosing the site of a data centre. Microsoft currently feeds 35 sets of data into an electronic map of the world, including internet connectivity, the availability of IT workers, even the air quality (dry air makes a good coolant), to see where conditions are favourable and which places should be avoided. Apparently Siberia comes out well.
The Economist goes on to discuss an aspect of this that I’ve blogged before:
Google, for its part, seems to be thinking of moving offshore. In August it applied for a patent for water-based data centres. “Computing centres are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away,” says the patent application.
