The World's Most Secure Data Center
The Swedish carrier Bahnhof offers its clientele bombproof bits.
If the whistleblower organization Wikileaks wanted to bolster its image as a league of invulnerable digital superheroes, it's found the right subterranean lair. Swedish broadband carrier Bahnhof confirms that some Wikileaks servers are now hosted in its Pionen data center, converted from an underground Cold War-era nuclear bunker in downtown Stockholm. The server farm, carved out of a 100-foot-tall granite hill, has a single entrance, protected by 20-inch-thick steel doors. Bahnhof Chairman Jon Karlung says the facility sends a message to clients: Your data are safe from all intrusions, physical or legal. "The resemblance to a James Bond setting is purely intentional."
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1. CONFERENCE ROOM A glass conference room is embedded in the cave's rock ceiling with eight 13-foot-long steel bolts.
2. NETWORK OPERATIONS CENTER The room now holding Bahnhof's NOC was built to command Stockholm's civil defense during a nuclear winter.
3. ENTRANCE The data center offers only one way in or out. A planned "Batcave"-like chute from the surface was nixed due to budget concerns.
4. GENERATORS The facility's two backup generators were originally designed for German submarines.
5. SERVER HALL Would Pionen's 8,000 servers survive a nuclear blast? "I'm not sure about the people, but the machines would survive," says Bahnhof Chairman Jon Karlung.
5. SERVER HALL Would Pionen's 8,000 servers survive a nuclear blast? "I'm not sure about the people, but the machines would survive," says Bahnhof Chairman Jon Karlung.
