PC Blades: Bigger than a Bread Box, Smaller than a Bunker

If you haven’t seen Brian Tiemann’s post about visiting InfoBunker in Iowa, it’s worth a read. Once owned by the Air Force, the bunker is now in private hands and home to the data stores of companies that require extremely high levels of physical data security. Tiemann reports that

“Many hardened, keycoded, and biometric-protected doors stand between the outside world and the NOC floors, including the self-sufficient power systems (six days’ worth of diesel fuel; 17,000 gallons of water, for drinking and fire suppression; military-grade NBC air filtration). It’s built to withstand a 20-megaton nuclear blast at 2.5 miles, according to the website, and I can believe it.”

InfoBunker president Jason McGinnis writes in the comments that “likely clients” include organizations in the financial, insurance, and medical industries, as well as the government.

Such organizations must go out of their way to create secure, redundant data stores, not only in preparation for elaborate nuclear doomsday scenarios but also in the event of more ordinary disasters. On SearchDataCenter.com, Mark Fontecchio recently profiled a company called MSApple that commissioned a 2,000 square foot, steel-walled in-house data center that protects against such hazards as inclement weather and leaky pipes.

“For MSApple, the directive to physically foolproof the data center came from the top, but in many companies, data center managers have a tough time convincing executives, who control the purse strings, that data center physical security is worth spending money on.”

If your own executive team still isn’t ready to spring for a bunker, PC blades offer a cost-effective alternative. They can reduce IT management overhead while providing the physical security advantages that accompany any centralized solution. Staff can manage systems remotely so they don’t need clearance to visit high-security areas. And, for zero electromagnetic emissions environments, ClearCube offers user ports that connect to blades by fiber-optic cable.

For more information on PC blades in secure environments, here.