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Cloud Data Storage

New Data Center Protects Against Solar Storm and Nuclear EMPs 59

Posted by samzenpus from the playing-it-safe dept.
dcblogs writes "In Boyers, Pa., a recently opened 2,000-sq.-ft. data center has been purpose-built to protect against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), either generated by a solar storm or a nuclear event. The company that built the facility isn't disclosing exactly how the data center was constructed or what materials were used. But broadly, it did say that the structure has an inner skin and an outer skin that use a combination of thicknesses and metals to provide EMP protection. Betting against an EMP event is a gamble. In 1859, the so-called Carrington solar storm lit the night skies and disrupted the only telegraph communications. William Murtagh, program coordinator at U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center, said there is ongoing concern that the earth may see an solar storm that could impact electronics on the ground. "We're concerned that can happen," A 2012 solar storm, that missed the earth, "was very powerful, and some have suggested it would have been on par with a Carrington-level event." One researcher put the odds of a catastrophic solar storm by 2020 as one in eight.
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New Data Center Protects Against Solar Storm and Nuclear EMPs More

New Data Center Protects Against Solar Storm and Nuclear EMPs

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  • Solar storm EMP vs nuclear weapons (Score:3)

    by magarity ( 164372 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:52PM (#47910907)

    OK, solar storm I can understand protecting against. But nuclear weapons EMP? Better to use the data center as a bunker in that case and never mind the data.

    • A nuclear produced EMP would likely be from a detonation high in the atmosphere that would do little or no damage on the ground. A bunker would not be needed for such a scenario.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Obscene_CNN ( 3652201 )
        A nuclear EMP can be produced by any nuclear detonation. Although an enemy might choose a high detonation to try to knock out just electronics the vast majority of nuclear warheads are going to be used for their blast effect. Thus a bunker would be useful

        • Re:Solar storm EMP vs nuclear weapons (Score:4, Informative)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @03:40PM (#47912555)
          While any nuclear detonation creates an EMP, it's really only high-altitude detonations that you need to worry about for EMP effects. Their interaction with the magnetosphere can amplify and spread their EMP effects over a very large area . By contrast the effective range for a normal ground or airburst nuclear EMP is less than its thermal and overpressure damage radii. When you are pincushioned by debris and on fire, you tend to re-evaluate your level of concern about your electronics.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mbone ( 558574 )

      EMP is not biologically dangerous, unless you are wearing something like a pacemaker. And, all you need for protection is a suitable Faraday cage and isolation from the grid, so the same shielding can protect against both EMPs and Solar Storms.

      • EMP is not biologically dangerous, unless you are wearing something like a pacemaker.

        In which case, it's still not biologically dangerous. It's just dangerous to you because you have non-biological parts performing essential functions.

  • That's it? With a datacenter that small, I wonder they didn't put it deep underground (unless this is a typo).

    Can I convert my basement into a data center and get it on slashdot too?

    • Can I convert my basement into a data center and get it on slashdot too?

      Putting your kids out on the streets wouldn't be good for society.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by decep ( 137319 )

      This is basically a closet in the data center world. It is certainly not nothing, but there are probably still satellites in operations that could not discern a building of this size. :-)

  • Poor comparison... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mister Transistor ( 259842 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @12:58PM (#47910999) Journal

    A "Carrington-level" event nowadays would most likely be much less disruptive, as back then all the early radio and spark gap stuff was well under 50 MHz, which is where almost all of the natural noise winds up in the spectrum. Ever notice, for example you can hear your shaver motor on an AM radio but not an FM one. This is not due to AM vs. FM, (well, it is a little) but mostly due to the fact that AM is about 1 MHz and FM is about 100 MHz, well above the "static line" around 50 MHz.

    It would take a much stronger signal than back then to cause the same level of disruption. Not saying that can't happen, but modern radio communications are quite a bit more robust than they were back over 100 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bengie ( 1121981 )
      I would be more concerned about power lines or transformers melting.

    • Re:Poor comparison... (Score:5, Informative)

      by jdschulteis ( 689834 ) on Monday September 15, 2014 @02:39PM (#47911967)

      A "Carrington-level" event nowadays would most likely be much less disruptive, as back then all the early radio and spark gap stuff was well under 50 MHz, which is where almost all of the natural noise winds up in the spectrum. Ever notice, for example you can hear your shaver motor on an AM radio but not an FM one. This is not due to AM vs. FM, (well, it is a little) but mostly due to the fact that AM is about 1 MHz and FM is about 100 MHz, well above the "static line" around 50 MHz.

      It would take a much stronger signal than back then to cause the same level of disruption. Not saying that can't happen, but modern radio communications are quite a bit more robust than they were back over 100 years ago.

      The concern is not so much about the disruption of radio communications, but the power grid [infowars.com]. Our society might not survive a massive, long-term (months or even years) blackout (a huge number of transformers might be destroyed all at once by the induced EMF).

  • They do know that solar storms can do absolutely nothing to a data center but maybe cause power outages, right?
  • Protecting the data center from EMP is one thing. If the pipes to Internet aren't protected against EMP, data entering and leaving the data center will get corrupted. Garbage in, garbage out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bengie ( 1121981 )
      You can detect corruption and it would probably cause a completely loss of network connection, which is still better than complete loss of some data and hardware.

  • My data center is completely safe against tigers. It's due to the construction materials used but I can't go into any detail.

  • This keeps coming up. The effects of an electromagnetic pulse and a solar storm are completely different. EMP is a big RF pulse with a risetime in the nanoseconds. This is a risk to input transistors connected to external wiring. Twisted pair, coax, and small mobile devices are relatively immune. Fiber optics are totally immune.

    Solar storms induce DC voltages across long distances of conductive landscape. This is a risk only to transformers with grounded center taps connected to long transmission lines.

    • Interesting slide deck from PJM - what's more interesting is the reference to a piece of damaged equipment for which the manufacturer quoted a two-year timeline for replacement (during normal business operations!), but a suitable spare had been found elsewhere and put in place within 6 months.
      From what I have read on the topic, this is the largest concern - spare parts simply do not exist, and if enough small pieces are damaged at once, they may never be replaced in a reasonable amount of time. Entire comm

    • You can design your power supplies to withstand a nuclear event using a NED http://www.maxwell.com/product... [maxwell.com] and when the pulse is over, your stuff just boots and it's business as usual. At least that's my understanding.

  • A good rule of thumb is that if your equipment is protected from a direct lightning hit, then it'll do fine against any EMP that won't destroy any reason for the equipment. ie a really close nuke could produce enough of an EMP to fry it, but would also destroy so much infrastructure there would be no point in having the equipment there in the first place.

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