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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

>> Data centers need a lot of infrastructure to run 24/7, and there’s a lot of potential in redeveloping large industrial sites like former coal power plants.

I can see rust-belt cities like Detroit being prime for this kind of development. Real estate would be cheap or nearly free and local governments would love to get a big name like Google into a tax-free zone.

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I live in Michigan and we do have a few datacenters and other Internet infrastructure organizations coming in, but I don't think the governments have realized the full potential yet, or the companies haven't gotten desperate enough. It's just not a big deal here.

Nearby, there is an old mine shaft that was repurposed into an underground datacenter, though. That was pretty cool.

The Tennessee Valley has a lot more "clean" power infrastructure than Detroit. Lake Guntersville is just over the hill from Huntsville and all the technology industry located there because of Redstone Arsenal and Marshall SFC.

Trouble is a dc doesn't employ that many people- especially with the way google have their dc's structured.

I bet you could run a google DC with 3 or 4 technical people per shift plus a few security guards plus their fury alligators (guards dogs)

Google stated that it would bring 75-100 permanent jobs.

Yes I am sure they did to the local politicians ;-)

Unless you collocating a call centre for adwords support I cant see how any DC would need 100 people full time - anyone got the org chart for a google DC?

There's just no way you can run a facility of that size with three people, sorry. In addition to DC techs you need building engineers, HVAC people, electricians, and probably a lot more that I'm not thinking of.

But post build and commissioning you don't need most of those full time. And given the way google run the dc the workload is a lot less than say an big IBM sysplex.

I bet you could run a Google style DC in normal ops with 3 or 4 people per shift plus security guards.

That's assuming they even bother with a 356/24h shift

You just fly in the specialized teams and new hardware already racked up when you need to.

especially as you have the link to the power grid already there I remember thinking the in the UK RAF twinwoods would have been a good place for a DC as it had a private link to the grid - as a result of all the Rnd and wind tunnels at that site.

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