I wonder what AT&T uses all that extra floor space for now.
I wonder what AT&T uses all that extra floor space for now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
They were likewise designed to withstand nuclear fallout. Because telephone switching equipment has shrunken over the years they now rent out some of the floor space as a hosted ultrasecure datacenter.
Actually no. The ones I'm referring to were (usually) built way out in rural areas, where they were away from the expected blast area of a hit on a major city. The one I'm aware of is built mostly underground, then backfilled so that it looks like a natural hill (a hill with a concrete top, and a big microwave tower).
Some of these facilities were rumored to have ground entry points for a system called Combat Ciders ... http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/combat_ciders.htm
This is pretty much the coolest thing I've seen all day. I'm not sure what kind of standards buildings are held up to in terms of load-per-foot-squared, but that seems like an awful lot to me. That building is incredible.
Most datacenters which are in excess of that were either originally built for telcos (crazy battery banks for the DC plant), or were industrial (e.g. the TANK FACTORY in SF which became 360 Spear/365 Main).
Behold, racks of crossbar switches (from one such AT&T facility). I'm glad these things are pretty much a relic of the past. I suspect the weight of those racks was one reason for the floor load ratings. http://long-lines.net/places-routes/MoundsOK/DSC00536A.html
... to comply with the Patriot Act.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/11/230203
Here's a map with links to pictures of 5 of the nuclear hardened sites.
http://www.silohome.com/atlas_f_missile_silo_for_sale_ultima... is a particularly nice example of a residential conversion, though.
Moses Lake, WA has a site which got used for ToorCamp, a hacker conference, a couple years ago. http://joachimp.fotki.com/events/toorcamp/page4.html
http://www.dtmag.com/dive-usa/locations/TexasMissileSiloTX.h...