Linode announces new datacenter location, Japan
blog.linode.com
blog.linode.com
Most providers offer a Japan hosting solution as the second facility in the APAC region after opening in Singapore or Hong Kong. Sing/HK is used for the bulk of the hosting business so typically the first offered but a Japan presence is next up, regardless of size, to offer a complete global solution for customers who handle data that must be within the Japanese borders in-place.
Since Linode is a US business, the government can still request data that is hosted on these servers, regardless of Japan's strict privacy restrictions.
See, for example:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patri...
http://www.freedomworks.org/issues/privacy/for-policy-makers...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Admits-Handing-over-Eu...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dutch-government-to-ban-us-pro...
etcetera.
If your customers are indeed coming from China, the most logical place to host your server would be Hong Kong IMO. It has good access time from the Chinese mainland and from other Asian countries.
However, please note that hosting a site in mainland requires a registration at the respective ICP bereau hosting province.
You biggest problem is that everything going into mainland China goes through the Great Firewall, which tends to slow stuff down (both lag and latency). (Outgoing data is faster, which I suspect means they don't really monitor it as actively).
The only way around TGF is to host your site in a mainland datacenter, probably getting a .cn address, and * definitely* complying with China's internet regulations.
Google does this, but it can't serve results from a mainland center (as it doesn't want to follow mainland regulations), so it gives you a link to results served by google.hk (which I think is hosted in Hong Kong, but you can probably host a .hk address in the US or Japan, since HK is pretty lax with regulations).
If you want fast mainland connections, you need a mainland datacenter, probably a .cn address, and to do that you need to follow Chinese regulations.
I don't know about North/South. Possibly some stuff is done by provincial governments. Certain zones (like Shenzhen), and people (or companies) with permission might be able to get unfiltered internet. Maybe there's two Great Firewalls, and you need two centers to get inside both. I'm not an expert.
But I'm 99% sure that HK datacenters will have the same obstacles (re TGF) that non-Chinese datacenters have.
As itsnotvalid has pointed out, some sites are best going to the effort of getting a mainland address, simply because it means China will try to work out any issues with you rather than simply banning you. As the paperwork and features are likely to take a while (I'm not an expert, but paperwork always takes time, especially if it's in another language), you might want to start the process before they ban your main site, to avoid service interruptions (and maybe for goodwill - it can't hurt to look like you want to cooperate).
Also, you can get a CDN (maybe http://en.chinacache.com/index.htm) to cache stuff. I think that would help.
From what I understand the government is mostly busy improving internal infrastructure and end-user speed.
Chinese generally use China equivalent sites for your major bandwidth usage. So, speeding this stuff up seems to be number 1 priority.
If there was a HN post every time a provider launched a new PoP we'd be swamped.
Disclosure: I work in the hosting industry.
I would like to add that it's pathetic that you got down-voted; it's further proof of how flawed HN moderation system really is.
The earthquake in March suggest that it might be prudent to have data retention in other areas of the country.
While Tokyo is a big city and that comes with pluses for access, it has the following minuses:
1. real estate is expensive relative to the rest of Japan.
2. summer is hot - why have data centers in Tokyo and not up in the mountains or up north where it's cooler?
3. the Greater Tokyo area is due for a major earthquake. In addition, there's historical data dating back centuries showing that a big quake in one area is followed by big quakes in other areas of the country (although fingers crossed that we don't see a 9.0 quake).
There has been a lot of press over the past few months about companies in Japan putting effort into backup facilities that aren't in the Tokyo area. After the quake in March there were blackouts and a reasonable amount of chaos - just imagine what it would be like if the Tokyo quake actually occurs.
You're not living in it.
The parent post asks good questions. Why are the data centers in Tokyo rather than in 'x' where 'x' doesn't have said problems? My best guess is network connectivity.
Since, one rack today can be stuffed with 90 servers each up to 20x more powerful than what was around in 2005, I doubt they really require more than 1 well configured rack for a long time. When the time comes to add a second rack they always have the option to place it in another Japanese city, if they don't decide to goto another Asian country instead.
Considering the above, I doubt the savings were worth moving out of Tokyo.
90 servers in a rack? Do you mean VPS? if not please could you elaborate?
Ping is a lot more important than an eventual earthquake even in Japan. Especially considering that all of Japan is prone to earthquakes. If you go up North, the Kinki area (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) will be quite far away, and lines will have much less redundancy than in a highly populated area.
In short, making a decision based on a possible huge natural disaster in the Kanto area would be a massive knee-jerk reaction.
To Japan from HK 9 hops. Latency ~75ms. Bandwidth ~ 2.2MB/sec.
To Fremont from HK 14 hope, Latency ~155ms. Bandwidth ~ 1.1MB/sec
That compares to about 250ms and 12 hops on iiNet, and 210ms and 14 hops on Telstra to fremont1.linode.com.
A little bit quicker, I think.
... maybe I'll move again. It'd shave 50-60ms.
Most ISPs will route to Japan sensibly, but a few try and save money and route via the US (note that this is the same as hosting with Amazon in Singapore).