Russia considers underground data centers after drone strikes

In short: Russia is looking for ways to better protect data centers, including putting some of them underground, after Ukrainian drone strikes disrupted major online services.

What's going on

Russian tech companies are trying to harden and hide data centers after drone strikes damaged facilities that support cloud services and AI supercomputers. A data center is a building full of computers that run apps and store data, like a giant server room that many companies share. When a key data center goes down, millions of people can lose access to everyday digital services.

Reports cited by Ars Technica say state-owned telecom company Rostelecom has discussed building some data centers underground with mining company Norilsk. Industry reports also described a proposal to place data centers inside open-pit coal mines and then build public parks above them as cover.

At the same time, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on November 2 requiring data center operators to set aside 10 percent of their space and computing capacity for emergency government needs. The decree also allows a special commission, working with Russia’s security services, to approve the use of foreign data centers. That is a shift from earlier rules under Russia’s “Sovereign Internet Law,” which aimed to keep Russian online infrastructure inside the country.

What to watch

The immediate question is whether Russia can spread out its most important computing sites, or whether a few major hubs will remain single points of failure (like having one power station serve an entire city). If strikes continue, more Russian services like banking, payments, shopping, and streaming could face outages, and the government may take a larger role in deciding where computing capacity is used.

Source: Arstechnica