Is Montana the Next Big Data Hub? 164
rye (208438) writes "Montana is positioning itself as the next hub for big data and cyber security. With companies like Symantec and IBM investing heavily in high-tech development, the opening of University of Montana's new Cyber Innovation Laboratory, and statewide competitions such as this weekend's Montana Cyber Triathlon (which had the coolest trophy ever), the momentum is strong. Cheap labor, cheap space and the Northern Tier backbone (with stretches over 600 miles across the width of Montana) are all contributing to the new tech growth. Even Congress is jumping on the bandwagon: Montana Rep. Steve Daines, a member of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security, recently said 'Technology has removed geography as a constant.'"
Nope. (Score:2)
Monwhere? (Score:2)
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Actually, Montana is completely north of the southern most point of Canada.
http://kottke.org/14/05/us-sta... [kottke.org]
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Re:Monwhere? (Score:4, Funny)
yes, it's miserable here. maybe the worst place in the entire world. I'd leave, but that's the thing, you can't leave. It's like prison.
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Instead of posting photos of Glacier and Yellowstone, we should post pictures of ... oh, say the old part of Butte. That'll keep the undesirables out. ;)
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When I was stationed up there in the middle 80's there were two season - Winter and July. Winter was -40 most of the time and I remember 6 foot high snow drifts up against the buildings. It was colder than a witches tit there. But had some good deer hunting in Augusta.
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Montana is where dental floss comes from.
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Frank is that you?
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Just to raise me up a crop of Dental Floss
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Montana is also known as Big Sky Country. This is not necessarily because the sky is bigger, but because the gound is smaller.
This ad brought to you by Montana! (Score:1)
We have electricty you know!
Cheap Labor (Score:3)
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maybe for you, but for a lot of people you have to pay them more to live in a place with no Starbucks, no Whole Foods Market, no sushi, no thai food
and generally any place where the only kinds of restaurants are american food
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Missoula (the U of M town) is sort of like a pre Starbucks Austin. Fairly liberal, small but vibrant community. Lots of problems, but nothing unusual in that. Great hiking, camping, skiing.
There are worse places to live, by far.
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Can't we comprormise and have MT be the home of the summer data center, and then have a winter data center down in Florida?
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Try Topeka Kansas 200-300k will buy a nice place plenty of malls, starbucks, bistros, traffic is not that bad.
Re:Cheap Labor (Score:4, Funny)
Lest anyone be concerned, the last time I was in Montana, I saw plenty of paragraphs and capital letters.
Facts are your Friend, Not Generalizations (Score:2)
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At least they have both types of music. Country and Western.
Re:Cheap Labor (Score:5, Informative)
" no Starbucks, no Whole Foods Market, no sushi, no thai food"
7 Thai restaurants in Billings.
8 Sushi in Billings
45 Coffee shops including Starbucks.
No Whole Foods but the Good Earth Market and Natural Grocers can fill the bill for a lot of people and you also have Costco.
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DUDE! Shut UP! There's no Indian food, no Thai food, no Sushi, no Lucky's or natural Grocers, no buildings over 2 stories, no stadium, the beer is really expensive, we have to look up wine in a book made from papyrus, and it's illegal to wear anything but a cowboy hat. seriously, it sucks here, don't come.
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Sorry but I just used Yelp.
Part of me really wants to move to Wyoming. I was born here in South Florida and I am tired of the heat, traffic, and snow birds.
Re:Cheap Labor (Score:5, Insightful)
Pardon me, while I snort with derision at the notion that Starbucks is a measure of sophistication and diversity.
Oh my soul for mod points! (Score:2)
Oh my soul for mod points!
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Re:Cheap Labor (Score:5, Funny)
I hate it when I'm in farm country and can't find a Whole Foods to get fresh food.
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Having worked through montana, etc, well, I hope you like corn. And it's not even good corn, it's the stuff that's really starchy and is used to produce all those wonderful products that go into everything.
Farm country is now just one big monocrop monoculture just about everywhere.
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maybe for you, but for a lot of people you have to pay them more to live in a place with no Starbucks, no Whole Foods Market, no sushi, no thai food
and generally any place where the only kinds of restaurants are american food
Have you ever heard of a phrase that goes like this? "Just fucking google it"?
I have a hard time thinking Montana folks would have difficulties finding organic food. Plus sushi and thai foods are pretty much as American now as chicken pie, you find them everywhere except in the poorest of towns (not isolated, but poorest, poorest != isolated.).
The only concern I would have to relocate to a state like Montana is the ability to live in a cosmopolitan city with several 4-year degree college options for my
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I live in a mid-west town population around 30k and have malls, 24/7 stores, fast food, pizza places, starbucks, other coffee houses and bistros, froyo, sushi, tia, italian, turkish. Not to mention all the places w/country cooking.
I'll be fair and say there are 4 towns in two counties slammed against each other with a state college in one w/total population around 130k. You can drive from one town to the next and only know because there is a sign.
Probably not far off from what to expect around Billings Mont
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You apparently haven't been to Billings lately.
It has all of the above.
Re:Cheap Labor (Score:4, Insightful)
When even a modest house is $1,000,000 in San Francisco [slate.com], you don't have to wonder.....
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Missing link and words
When even a modest house is $1,000,000 in San Francisco [slate.com], you don't have to wonder.....
I have a house of the same square footage as that San Fransisco example, which cost me 16% as much just outside of Chicago and you know that house in San Francisco doesn't sit on a half-acre lot either.
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And getting closer all the time....
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Missing link and words When even a modest house is $1,000,000 in San Francisco [slate.com], you don't have to wonder.....
Cold, hard facts like those where the ones that quickly disabused my wife and I from the notion of relocating our entire family to the Bay Area.
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I had a coworker in silicon valley that telecommuted from Montana. He loved it. California salary, Montana cost of living, and good fishing.
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Cheap labor seems to be the thing that stands out the most. I would think that labor is only cheap in Montana because land is cheap, and therefore people can live for less money. When even a modest house is , you don't have to wonder why they have to pay people so much to work there. Even if you pay the workers the same amount, you can attract a lot of talent because they'll be able to live that much more comfortably.
There are many factors to consider for a data hub site. I would consider the following
a) Low summer heat to cut A/C costs. Winter cold where surplus heat would be absorbed to maintain the building temperature.
b) Reliable and low cost electricity supply (24/7) plus 4cents per kwh.
c) Multilingual labor (English, Spanish, French, Arab ) speaking
d) Talent for operations and enhancements for mostly unmanned operation
e) Cost of employee benefits.
f) Great universities around the Data Hub Site
g) State of the art
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I hear you. We have a saying here in the Beaver State: "Don't Californicate Oregon".
if you can't go to walmart at lunch time (Score:1)
Not Quite, but Improving (Score:5, Informative)
Upgraded backbone? (Score:2)
Technology has removed geography as a constant (Score:4, Insightful)
So, how's Montana doing on the whole "we love a diverse population that looks like the whole world" thing?
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Not enough people (Score:3, Insightful)
Montana's total population is just slightly above 1 million. SF Bay Area is more like 7.4 million with a much higher percentage of tech workers. So, no, Montana isn't going to be the next tech hub because there aren't enough workers there. Might be a place for DC's if there's enough bandwidth.
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That might not be a bad thing. I live in a city that went from 300,000 people to over two million in about 10 years, and houses went from $30,000 for a nice house to $250,000 for a place where you will be spending 45-60 minutes for a commute. To boot, there are not the Bay Area amenities and no parks either (well, except for Zilker, which requires a taxi to go to.) If you want a zoo, you have to drive 90 miles to another city.
I would be happy to move to a relatively small town of tech-minded people. It
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I live in Minnesota and have visited the Bay Area a couple of times. Amenities, you are spot on: they are a little expensive, but they are there, and certainly more interesting and diverse than what we can obtain in Minnesota.
But what people in the Bay Area call "parks" we call "walking out your front door" in Minnesota.
Also, Muir Woods? I'm happy that there is some patch of land that still has trees in the Bay Area, but it was kind of sad s
Parent is referring to Austin (Score:2)
Just FYI, the parent is referring to Austin, TX. They had a huge population growth period but the city was under the mentality of "If we don't build it, they won't come." They were wrong, so Austin has something like the 4th worst traffic [chron.com] in the US and a cost of living somewhat like Atlanta.
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That might not be a bad thing. I live in a city that went from 300,000 people to over two million in about 10 years,
No, you don't. Assuming you're talking about Austin (given the Zilker Park reference), the Austin Metro Statistical Area was 1.83 million in 2012. In 2000, it was 1.25 million. That's some serious growth, but it's nowhere near 300k to 2 million. The MSA had 300k people in 1960, but I guess "300k to 2 million in 50 years" doesn't have the same ring to it.
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I can make a case for my hometown, Ludington, Michigan.
1. We have cheap labor hear.
2. We are close to several large cities(Chicago is only about 250 miles) and Universities(Michigan State, University of Michigan)
3. We have one of the largest pumped storage plants in the world for power.
4. A very small part of that water could be used for cooling. The temperature of Lake Michigan is still under 40 degrees.
5. We have 56 windmills in the county. There is a large potential area in the center of Lake Mich
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While these are good points, you did forget to point out the 2.7 metric fucktons of snow that Lake Michigan deposits on you.
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My wife and I visited Ludington a few years ago. I love the West side of Michigan.
We were really impressed by the number of people that turned out on a Saturday morning the week before Memorial Day to plant flowers and beautify the town for Tourist season. If an employer looking for a Senior System Engineer was in Ludington or even Muskegon, we would move there in a heartbeat.
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Probably not. Datacenters don't employ very many people. It's easy enough to fly in specialists to set them up and debug the really ugly problems.
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As others have stated, that might not be a bad thing.
For one, there's a chicken/egg problem. No reason to stay if there's no jobs, no reason to move if there's no jobs. But if there's jobs and a means to pay for people to stay/relocate, then that problem may solve itself. There's plenty of IT/Dev workers who've grown tired of "big city" life and the associated issues that come with it: Expensive Housing, Expensive transportation, constant congestion, tons of pollution (noise, light, sound, and environme
Economics (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies used to locate based on availability of transportation -- rivers, ports etc. Now it's a data pipe.
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Transportation still matters when you're making physical goods.
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And how much the state is will to pay in tax breaks to get them there. Here in Iowa, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have all put in or are putting in, large data centers.
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With outsourcing they'll move the the business halfway around the earth if needed, it's not really the pipe they come for. You'll get nowhere without a talent pool that's interesting to somebody.
Recruiting? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would think if this was even somewhat true it would be evident from attempts to recruit talent from outside Montana. I haven't heard or seen any postings to attract experienced talent. This sounds like another "Promote the story to get more funds from the government" and press for the local politicians to start another mediocre fake Silicon Valley. Another place to put technology that only needs cheap inexperienced labor from the local schools. A warehouse for servers where the only talent needed is ability to push a button for hard reboot and pull out a drive or motherboard... A+ Certified only requirement, unless thats too expensive. The more experienced employees will still be elsewhere remoting in when needed. :-)
Or am I just being too harsh
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Nope, just right. Every country wants to get their own knockoff Silicon Valley with these cargo-cult antics. But they can't copy what really matters:
The brand name which is tied to the location.
You can put together all the skilled employees and overvalued half-baked ideas you want, but outside of the original Silicon Valley they are worthless. No VCs are looking to blow cash on their startups. Startups don't even get called startups, they use the full name, "unsuccessful small businesses," which is what pre
Why is the coolest trophy ever... (Score:2)
Getting a kick out of these replies... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Getting a kick out of these replies... (Score:4, Funny)
He's lying folks. Really, his salary is $500K / yr, he lives in a 4000 sq foot mansion that he paid $100,000 for and he gets all the bison he can eat. He's just not very social and doesn't want neighbors.
Just like the rest of us.
So, lets all move to Montana and say 'howdy'!
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Indeed... every time one of these stories gets posted, we get a flood of the same kind of replies "it's not McHipsterville, so nobody will want to live there". Get the hell over yourselves Slashdot. Not everyone is a McHipster.
Water (Score:1)
I don't know if Montana has power issues, but I do know that they felt is was worthwhile to sue Wyoming over what amounted to about 10,000 acre feet of water.
And, of course, as mentioned, if you have data. There might be a backbone, but that is like
No (Score:1)
No. Montana sucks. Please don't move here...I mean there.
Why Slashvertisments always hit Betteridge's law? (Score:2)
Whenever someone Slashvertises something on /. with a post whose title is a question then (at least) one of us always brings up Betteridge's Law Of Headlines [wikipedia.org]. If not directly, then indirectly (like this [slashdot.org]).
So why do they keep doing it? I gotta believe that if someone's paying for it that at least one customer would follow up with the results at least one time (and send feedback to whichever company/-ies slashvertise for them)
(Yes, my subject should be "Why do Slashvertisements...", but I ran out of characte
I'm moving to Montana (Score:2)
Gonna be a dental floss tycoon.
I like this plan. (Score:2)
In 30 years or so when I inherit my parents' home in Missoula, I'll be sitting pretty.
In the mean time, I can go visit them and enjoy the pre-Fairfax/Loudoun County-ized state of the area.
This seems like a win-win situation to me.
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Montana LOVES business (Score:2)
You can't quit us!
MT already is a favorite place for the wealthy too (Score:2)
The Big Sky area of Montana is already full of vacation homes and ranches of wealthy VC types so its not a big stretch that they might choose to plop a Data Center there. Still I think it is far more likely that you will see more data centers copping up in SLC because of the NSA. All the big government contractors will be putting boots on the ground in SLC and they can't co-locate at the NSA facility.
SF, NYC, and DC are just so expensive.
Easter half of state is all misslie silos (Score:2)
I was stationed there in the middle 80's - pretty much the eastern half of the state is minuteman III missile silos. Good old Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls!
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Actually it's the other way round... folks from Calgary are often seen shopping in Great Falls (prolly not so much now with the oil boom and all the growth on northward, but when I was a kid there, it was very much so). Never heard of anyone doing the opposite.
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Canada's in Montana...
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Where are your people at? I've got rancher relatives up by Fort Benton myself. And yeah, it not only requires skill and education, it requires good judgment and good risk assessment, because nothing is a 100% sure thing in agriculture.
And as to the educational level... it's so much better in MT than, say, California (I can attest, having lived about equal time both places) it's not funny. But don't believe me, believe the Census data:
This was current as of 2007, but it's enough to illustrate trends:
For popu
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Most STEM degrees at the undergraduate level are equivalent. It is only in grad school that differentiation occurs. Logic is logic. Java is Java. Differential equations are differential equations no matter where on the globe you are.
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Most STEM degrees at the undergraduate level are equivalent.
Take ten people with CS degrees from MIT. Take ten more with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. Give them each a programming assignment that should take about an hour. It is highly unlikely that the results will be "equivalent".
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Why do you say highly unlikely? If everyone completes the same basic courses then that is evidence their intelligence is about equivalent.
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Why do you say highly unlikely?
You have a serious detachment from reality if you think Univ of Phoenix graduates will, on average, perform as well as MIT graduates.
If everyone completes the same basic courses ...
But they are NOT "the same". Classes at top tier schools have better instructors, more rigorous standards, more and harder assignments, and more competitive students.
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But they are NOT "the same". Classes at top tier schools have ... more competitive students.
Frankly, I think you could have left the rest of your list out and this would be the answer. Better/more competitive schools draw a generally better caliber of students. I've studied and/or worked at enough different institutions of higher education (small liberal arts college, Ivy League uni, 3 different state universities) that I'll say this as fact, and I know a number of people who've taken courses/gotten degrees at Phoenix or equivalent, usually because it was necessary for their continued employment.
T
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You could make this a little more fair by pitting one person with a CS degree from MIT against ten people with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. ;)
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Measuring understanding is hard. But I will contend that if two people get equivalent degrees with equivalent grades their understanding will be approximately equivalent. And I will also posit that real depth of understanding only comes after several years of experience.
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Both Apple and Facebook put data centers in Prineville, Oregon which is a place I wouldn't consider any more advanced than Montana. Apparently they haven't had problems attracting workers.
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they did it for the costs. parts changers are cheap, and power and bandwidth are cheap there as well.
When you have a parts changer, but good sysadmins across the globe you can do that. with remote kvm's and now most servers with good baseband management tools, it's cheaper to have good sysadmins do the cleanup and setup work from half a world away.
Pay the sysadmins to automate most of the process and have cheap parts changers on hand and it's easy as sin to keep a datacenter running well. It's pricey but th
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Modern cattle ranching actually requires a ton of education if you want to be at all successful at it.
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Assuming some backhoe resistance on lines, Montana makes sense for data centers. It is well out of the way geographically from the more populated areas, and other than winter, there isn't much in the way of natural disasters that could come that way. As stated above, the cold climate makes it perfect for a data center.
Only downside is that people would have to live quite near the data center if a blizzard happens, but done right, that shouldn't be much of an issue if planned right.
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What about the Yellowstone caldera?
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Blizzards happen all the time, but we've got these newfangled contraptions called snowplows... in fact we're equipped to deal with winter in the extreme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Okay, so that's way up in the high country, but I've never seen it to where you couldn't get around in town or couldn't get from one town to the next if you really had to.
Re:I've been there (Score:5, Informative)
While there is a grain of truth to that, don't over do it. Yes, you have to get used to a gun culture, but it's remarkably low key. It's just 'normal'. Most hunters (certainly not all) understand that some people don't like to see bloody real things or talk about them. Most rural folks are rather polite and even fairly tolerant.
It might do you some good to be around a culture that just uses guns as tools. Yes, there is a smattering of scary militia types, but you find them pretty much everywhere except downtown NYC. Even with those clowns, if you don't bother them (well advised), they won't bother you.
Here in Alaska, it's not unusual to see someone hitching down the road with a hunting rifle. And getting picked up. Humans can get used to most anything.
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