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May 31, 2011 By Chad Vander Veen
Earlier this year IBM, in conjunction with China-based Range Technology, announced plans to build the world’s largest data center. Construction on what will be a 6.2-million-square-foot facility is under way and should be completed in 2016. The data center, located in the city of Langfang, is designed to deliver cloud computing services to the Hebei Province, a region bordering the northern China metropolises of Tianjin and Beijing.
The facility will be nearly the size of the 6.5-million-square-foot Pentagon, one of the world’s largest office buildings. IBM Service Business Executive Glen Yuan, in an e-mail interview, provided further detail about this enormous project.
What’s the purpose of the cloud computing facility?
To build a state-of-the-art, enterprise-class cloud computing data center to support the development of Hebei Province as a high-end information technology and services-based economy. The collaboration will help companies across China with enterprisewide strategic outsourcing services, business continuity and disaster recovery services, in addition to advanced capabilities in cloud computing storage and mobile-device management.
How large is the facility anticipated to be?
The actual facility will be quite large. It will include offices, apartments and a hotel, in addition to data center facilities. Phase one of construction includes three data centers with 32,000 square meters of raised floor space each, and phase two will include an additional four data centers for a total of seven. Space also will be made for an additional three data centers based upon need.
Can you provide an overview of the Chinese technology landscape that makes a project of this scale possible?
State-owned enterprises have plans to consolidate IT facilities and infrastructure. Additionally the top four banks in China also have very large-scale, high-tier data centers or are planning them. Some businesses own and operate data centers that measure 1.5 million square meters. Therefore, planning a data center of this size is not out of the question or completely unheard of, but it’s rather to fill a void.
What sort of capabilities will this facility provide?
While still early in construction — and therefore early to discuss specific capabilities — Range will rely on IBM’s deep expertise in technology, training, solutions and data center design services for building the center. IBM and Range Technology will work to provide hosting and operation-related services, as Range will support independent software vendors and other enterprises for software product development. Overall, the platform will support Langfang’s development and hosting for smarter transportation, e-government services, administration systems, food and drug safety services, supervision solutions and health-care projects, including electronic medical records. The first stage is to build a Tier IV data center.
Who will use the facility?
Local governments, foreign enterprises and service providers among others. IBM is working with Range Technology to create the resources for local governments and businesses to use the facility.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/featured/China-to-Build-Worlds-Largest-Data-Center.html
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I would not trust my private data to any facility maintained by the Chinese government.
I agree completely with M.A.Jackson, trusting data to the Chinese government? Not on your life. I don't care that IBM is backing the project, the security implications are immense! More and more data theft and system attacks are coming from within China, how can the data be secure? Any business or government that would trust this facility is just like letting the fox guard the hen house.
This type of advancement in China's IT strategic planning should be a signal to U.S.government and businesses that the Chinese plan on being the world's super power in technology as well as economically. We (the U.S.) needs to become far more efficient and productive to be able to compete in a very competitive global economy.
If the US doesn't leave behind its current silly political discussion and take bold action to compete in a changing landscape, we are going to be left behind.
The U.S. gave away its technology lead when it encouraged American corporations to outsource technology operations overseas and replace local American technologists with imported H1-Bs, L1s and other "guest workers". Just as many Americans were forced to train their replacements, the past fifteen years of outsourcing, offshoring, and guest worker use has trained our competitors to replace us. We gave away manufacturing, then high technology. What do we have left? Hollywood movies? What do we produce that the rest of the world can't buy somewhere else cheaper? Welcome to the 21st century, would you like fries with that?
Dear Philip P, My project got outsourced and I lost my job because my company could not find enough Americans to fill the jobs or Americans were unwilling to come in and pick up the slack on our project for short periods of time. We used to have H1B guys who we would bring in to get work done when we were falling behind. We cannot find Americans to fill such positions. Lately, H1Bs are being unallowed to come back to the US at the US consulates. Our management decided it was far more effecient to get everyone in one place and finish the project - in India! H1Bs keep jobs here! Outsourcing = none of us have jobs anymore! Oh, I am employed again, but at 70% my previous salary, with no benefits- thank you very much! James F
Hey, that's the American way, business does what it wants (e.g., moves jobs overseas) and the politicians ensure that the working person/American citizen doesn't get a voice in that decision. I used to think America was a democracy until I realized that private tyrannies rule our country and care nothing about it.
Technology and gov't contractors businesses are for the most part only interested in bottom line profit. Welcome to the job stock market of a global economy.
i said yes also we can trust the us but not people outside the usa we should be scare they may be not safe