Aerial Footage of Apple's North Carolina Data Center

[Erwin-Br]

That facility could have been built here in Calif if the state was not so antibusiness, huge environmental regulations, high taxes and no tort reform. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.

California's problem is that too many people want to live there. Building more homes and businesses isn't going to solve anything, because it means that even more people from other states (like NC) will move to CA because there's no jobs in their own state.

 

[alent1234]

That facility could have been built here in Calif if the state was not so antibusiness, huge environmental regulations, high taxes and no tort reform. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.

with all the users on the east coast it makes sense to stage the data closer to them

 

[tatonka]

Google's "size" means nothing when they can make their search engine the default search on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Safari (Mac/PC). They'd get about 15-20% of the market. It'd have to be user friendly, useful, well designed, and still load fast. It'd fit well with their new advertising division.

I don't think they'd beat Google, but it'd probably do better than Bing.

Lol, I think you got a little excited with the numbers there .. MS sure has more place it tries to push Bing as the default search engine and they are no where near those numbers.

Besides the only thing that really matters for a search engine is that it acutally finds stuff good. There is a bunch of search engines that have nicer interfaces or features, but people stay with google because it gets the job done.

T.

 

[WildCowboy]

California's problem is that too many people want to live there. Building more homes and businesses isn't going to solve anything, because it means that even more people from other states (like NC) will move to CA because there's no jobs in their own state.

Jobs are tough everywhere now. And actually, North Carolina continues to be one of the fastest-growing states while California is experiencing a net out-migration and has been continuing to grow only due to birth rates the past couple of years.

 

[gwarth]

OT: God, I hate Flash.

HTML5 ftw!

 

[djchuckc27]

i hope having this cloud media server will require a mobile me subscription... that way all i need to do is install the update!

 

[OdysseyExplorer]

It's too bad that Apple charges for Mobile Me instead of having free cloud storage like Google.

 

[NIPRING]

I'm surprised any footage of this site is even available? Given Apple's extreme secrecy.


BTW, how many secret lower levels do you think are beneath it

 

[doctor-don]

Yup. and the area is going to have an influx of HVAC people since it must stay cool.

I'm guessing the median income of a AC/HVAC person just went up in that area.

Did Apple receive stimulus money?

 

[doctor-don]

+1000

This will be the source of D/L'g Ebooks, Movies and music and anything else Apple wants to send to you.

KRAP, fella. Use something other than a bug. I almost sprayed insect killer on my 23-inch ACD.

 

[RTee]

Was hoping to see the Apple logo on the roof!

It's huge!

 

[NIPRING]

I'd hate to think what a target that place would be to terrorists once its up and running, with a giant apple logo on the roof

 

[KidIcarus412]

There won't be any logos on the building, data centers are discrete looking. There will also be no underground levels, just a bunch of foundations and utilities. I have only ever seen one data center have a basement. The openings on the near side of the building are not doors, they are louver openings. Louvers wouldn't be installed yet because they will bring equipment in through there. The giant tanks in the back are for water, fuel tanks are typically buried for obvious reasons. Most data centers are pretty similar in design.

Its probably the worst kept secret Apple has ever had. It has gotten a ton of press because of the tax breaks and its not really even hidden from the road. I assume they will put more trees in near completion.

 

[enigmaverse]

I actually grew up in the same county as Maiden; they were high school football rivals. As far as how the locals feel, you have to understand that this area is second only to Detroit as far as obliterated by the recession goes. They need anything they can get. Alternatively, even if it's only a relative few full time positions there, the chances of them filling it locally is slim. They will have to pay people to move there (there's truly nothing there), and they will perhaps get people from Charlotte to commit to the hour+ commute.

I'll quote yours because it closest to the original question about how this will help the area:

Outside of the real estate boom of bringing in qualified applicants to work the tech jobs, you also have a fairly large supprt staff at any facility that are not rocket scientist: Maintenance and janitorial staff, electrician, plumbers, repair personel, office managers, etc. Then there are the outside jobs created: New business to support the community (food, clothing, etc), new hires for existing companies as well as new municipal jobs.

This is huge for Maiden and goes well beyond the building itself. Dole moved into my brothers town and it completely changed the make up and wealth of the town: taxes went down, educational and municipal facilities had more money than they new what to do with. They now have all new schools and equipment and a fully funded recreation center/ Gym that any town resident can use for free.

this can do great things for Maiden and the surrounding towns.

 

[ARF900]

Something has to be coming from them to need this kind of server power right? They didnt build this building for mobile me users...

The thing with apple is that they could go into any industry they wanted to and be successful just because of their brand name. Who knows, we will only speculate to later find we are wrong.

 

[yg17]

....but does it support multitasking and will it work on Verizon?

 

[sushi]

I wonder if Apple is considering providing backup support for iTMS purchases?

For example, for only $xx per year or $x per movie/song, Apple provides the backup. So iTMS users would no longer need to worry about purchasing and setting up some sort of backup system for their large music, movie, TV show, etc. collections.

This service could be linked to iDisk accounts virtually.

Speaking of which, I hope that we see larger MobileMe storage offerings at reasonable prices in the future. Offsite storage (backup) of your personal files is important.

 

[yg17]

I wonder if Apple is considering providing backup support for iTMS purchases?

It doesn't even have to be backup in the sense that a copy of your file is backed up somewhere. It could just be "for $x per song you can redownload it." It wouldn't require any more storage than they already have. I guess it could be marketed to end users as a backup option, but really, it wouldn't be.

 

[sushi]

It doesn't even have to be backup in the sense that a copy of your file is backed up somewhere. It could just be "for $x per song you can redownload it." It wouldn't require any more storage than they already have. I guess it could be marketed to end users as a backup option, but really, it wouldn't be.

But it would still be a backup from the end users perspective.

And the thought of not having to purchase backup HDs, RAIDs, etc. would be nice. If reasonable cost and speed, I would much rather use the Cloud.

The reason that I mention this, is if you have a bad DL from iTMS, Apple will authorize another DL.

However, if it has been a while, and in my case it was a year, they will require you to purchase a new copy.

So if they allowed backup insurance, or whatever, then instead of the user worrying about backing up purchases they can just DL a new copy if the current one is lost or corrupted. Apple already has it on their servers so it is only a matter of DL cost.

Also, and this just dawned on me, this would support their future mobile devices like the iPad. You are out on the road and you want to watch a movie that you've purchased, but it's not on your iPad, you can just DL a copy to watch. Using the same situation, you just took 8GB of photos. You upload to the iPad, then upload to your MobileMe account.

As dark fiber is turned on, Internet capacity and functionality will be increasing.

 

[Jaro65]

Imagine the data bandwidth going into and out of that building! Probably a bit of an electricity bill too once it's in full operation.

Multiple OC-48s for sure. Or maybe even multiple OC-192s. As you most likely know, nowadays the bandwidth requirements are really a question of finances, rather than technology. With the DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) you can provide dozens of 10 Gbps connections per single strand of fiber.

It would be exciting to see the gear they have in there.

 

[sushi]

Multiple OC-48s for sure. Or maybe even multiple OC-192s.

I bet multiple OC-192s due to close location to the backbone. Maybe even OC-768 level.

Bring on the dark fiber!

 

[bradley212]

redundancy redundancy

shouldn't they be building multiple redundant data centers so if this one goes offline, gets taken out, has a glitch -- no data will be lost.

 

[sux2beyou]

But it would still be a backup from the end users perspective.

And the thought of not having to purchase backup HDs, RAIDs, etc. would be nice. If reasonable cost and speed, I would much rather use the Cloud.

The reason that I mention this, is if you have a bad DL from iTMS, Apple will authorize another DL.

However, if it has been a while, and in my case it was a year, they will require you to purchase a new copy.

So if they allowed backup insurance, or whatever, then instead of the user worrying about backing up purchases they can just DL a new copy if the current one is lost or corrupted. Apple already has it on their servers so it is only a matter of DL cost.

Just an FYI, Apple will allow you to redownload all of your purchases as a one time exception (as in once in the lifetime of your iTunes Store Account)

Go to http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ to ask for it.

 

[KidIcarus412]

shouldn't they be building multiple redundant data centers so if this one goes offline, gets taken out, has a glitch -- no data will be lost.

Its possible that one half of the data center is redundant of the other. Each side would have backup generators and possibly power coming from two different grids depending on location.

Or its the first of multiple data centers.

 

[rjohnstone]

Its possible that one half of the data center is redundant of the other. Each side would have backup generators and possibly power coming from two different grids depending on location.

Or its the first of multiple data centers.

Every data canter I've ever worked in, and I've worked in more than a few, has off-site back.
You never split your building.
You split locations and you do it with a lot of distance between them. Typically 2 or more locations for disaster recovery and redundancy purposes.

I currently work at one of the largest privately owned data centers in North America (1,000,000 + sq ft of raised floor) and our disaster recovery site is not even in the same state.
They are synced in real time via multiple OC-48 and OC-192 connections from different carriers.
All backups that are on tape are stored at least 10 miles away from our site.

Our new data center is scheduled to open by 2013 and will be twice the size of our current one, which will then become another back up/disaster recovery site.

The site Apple is building is sizable, but if they intend for this to hold anything "mission critical", they will be building or buying a smaller secondary site for fail over.

Like the old saying goes... "never put all your eggs in one basket."