Its power
grid is virtual emissions free and there's plenty of cool air to keep a data
center from over heating - and now Iceland wants to become the "green hard
drive" of the world.
To a lot of
people, cloud computing evokes an image of something clean and pristine, just
hanging there in the wonderful blue sky.
But cloud
computing is actually quite dirty. The data centers that host the cloud use a
huge amount of energy to ensure we have constant access to our email, pictures,
videos and all other forms of digital files.
In fact,
it's said that if the Internet and the data storage that's required to keep it
going were a state, it would be one of the five biggest energy consuming
countries in the world.
But Iceland
is taking steps to reduce our collective "footprint" in the cloud.
Data stored
on a former military bases
The small
country is becoming the home of a new generation of data centers that work
exclusively with renewable energy - and they are cooled with local, fresh air.
One such
example is at a former NATO base at Keflavik.
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| Iceland President Olafur Grimsson has hailed the Keflavik data center as a fascinating transformation |
Verne
Global began operating this new data center at the disused military facility
just a few months ago.
The
facility is about 500 square meters (1640 square feet) in size, and there is a
lot of free space that could be filled with yet more servers.
But what
those servers hold is a secret - we aren't told what kind of data is stored at
Keflavik, or which companies have chosen to have their data processed here.
"One
of the big advantages that Iceland offers is the security perimeter," says
Tate Cantrell, chief technology officer at Verne Global. "For the same
reason that during the Cold War this became a very central point for the
military, we have to bring our security up to a world class standard to assume
that somebody may want to do something nefarious."
Hydro and
geothermal energy make a cloud green
Iceland's
electric grid is almost 100 percent green. This means that the Keflavik data
center is also almost totally green, emitting close to zero carbon.
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| The Keflavik data center is almost 100 percent green - energy-wise |
"A
data center is in fact a lot of computers stacked together which use a lot of
energy and need an excellent communication with the outside world. The data
center is where the processing occurs, as part of the data that you see on a
day-to-day basis, on your phone or on your computer," says Cantrell.
"You
don't have enough processing capacity with you when you are snapping a picture
and you put it up into a place to store it so that you can access it later -
that picture goes to a data center."
Einar
Tomasson heads the data center section at Promote Iceland, the national agency
for foreign investments.
Tomasson
says several data center operators have shown interest in Iceland as it builds
a reputation as the "green hard drive" of the world.
"What
is good about Iceland is that we have very competitive power prices and only
use green power - hydro or geothermal," says Tomasson.
"We
have free cooling 365 days of the year because the climate here is very stable.
It's a very secure location - smacked between the US and Europe - and we have
submarine cables that go both to the East and the West."
Volcanic
but equally "protective"
But some
potential clients are reluctant to store their masses of data on Iceland, which
is known for its volcanic eruptions.
It's
thought the moody Icelandic nature may also be a reason why Facebook and Google
opted for other Nordic countries instead. They store their data in Sweden and
Finland.
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| Iceland wants to become the "green hard drive" of the world |
But senior
Iceland officials insist there is no safer place than this country.
Even the
country's president, Olafur Grimsson, describes the new facility as "a
fascinating example of how you can transform a military base into a strong
center of innovation within a few years."
But more
than this, Cantrell says the key is privacy.
"Iceland
is very protective of privacy, so certain companies would be able to take
advantage of the way the Icelandic government approaches data protection and
they will be able to run their businesses better with a data center here than
they might in another location," says Cantrell.
This legal
provision on privacy has motivated, among others, the whistle-blower website,
Wikileaks, to store some of its data and to register a company in Iceland.
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