The abandoned mine that's being transformed into a datacenter | zdnet

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The abandoned mine that's being transformed into a datacenter IBM is one of the ďŹ rst customers for Norway's Lefdal Mine Datacenter, a six-level deep facility next to a fjord.

By Stig Ă˜yvann | August 27, 2015 -- 11:00 GMT (04:00 PDT) | Topic: Data Centers

A model of the avenues and streets in the Lefdal Mine Datacenter. Image: Lefdal Mine Datacenter

An abandoned mine in Norway has been given a new lease of life this week - as a datacenter.

The Lefdal Mine Datacenter (http://www.lefdalmine.com/), located by a fjord on Norway's

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TWO TENANTS SIGNED Lefdal Mine has already signed two international companies as its first tenants: IBM and German industrial conglomerate Friedhelm LOH Group.

The two businesses have worked on the development of the facility: IBM was involved in the design process, and will also take part in its build-out.

The pair will move into the datacenter in August 2016, and the facility will be opened to other clients from that October.

Friedhelm LOH has acquired 33.3 percent of Lefdal

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Mine's shares, and its subsidiary Rittal is one of the mine's technology partners.

Rittal will supply racks, containers, cooling equipment, and power systems for the datacenter, and has developed modules specifically for the Lefdal facility.

The containers used in the mine, manufactured in Germany, can even be shipped to the end customer's premises first, for installation of their equipment, before they're finally delivered to the Lefdal Mine Datacenter.

AVENUES AND STREETS FOR CONTAINERS The facility covers 120,000 square meters, spread over six levels.

(http://www.zdnet.com/article /military-cave-transformedinto-underground-datacentrethanks-to-cloud-startup/)

What do you do with an old military cave? Turn it into an underground datacentre (http://www.zdnet.com/article /military-cave-transformedinto-underground-datacentre-thanksto-cloud-startup/)

Finnish-Israeli cloud firm

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site of its next facility.

Read More (http://www.zdnet.com /article/military-cave-transformedinto-underground-datacentre-thanksto-cloud-startup/)

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The first stage of the build-out will involve a single level of the mine, Vidar Saltkjel, the technology manager of Lefdal Mine, told ZDNet. Most of the mine's levels are arranged in a simple grid pattern, with the levels connected by a 1,300-meter spiral access road. The road is 14 meters wide and 8.5 meters tall - large enough for two-way traffic by trailers carrying standard transport containers.

Each level has a central access road that connects to the spiral access road, with galleries of varying lengths across it. These galleries are on average 100 meters long, and between 11 and 18 meters high, and there are 75 such galleries in the mine in total.

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The access roads on each level of the mine will be known as avenues, and the galleries called streets. It is in

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transportation container modules. The streets will house these 40-feet containers in three heights, and the streets are wide enough to install containers on both sides, leaving room for a transport road in the middle. (http://www.zdnet.com/article

In addition to the avenues and streets, there are also

/connecting-the-datacentre-

service tunnels in the mine, carrying two independent

paradise-the-north-seas-latency-

circuits of water-coolant pipes, as well as power and

slashing-fibre-network-opens-up/)

communication lines.

Connecting the 'datacentre paradise': The North Sea's latency-slashing fibre network opens up (http://www.zdnet.com

The modular system, used both for the racks and in the

/article/connecting-the-datacentre-

containers, developed by Rittal, allows for a high degree

paradise-the-north-seas-latency-

of standardization. The containers only need to be

slashing-fibre-network-opens-up/)

plugged into the power, cooling, and comms supplies in

Formerly just for the oil and

the datacenter and they're ready to go.

gas industry, Tampnet is now

The delivery time for the container will be around six

hoping to tempt companies

weeks from order to installation, according to Rittal.

with a need for high performance onto its

The more traditional way of building datacenters with

undersea fibre network.

data halls, rooms, and floors, will also be an option inside the mine for customers who prefer that architecture.

Read More (http://www.zdnet.com /article/connecting-the-datacentreparadise-the-north-seas-latencyslashing-fibre-network-opens-up/)

GREEN AND ECONOMIC Lefdal Mine Datacenter uses cold seawater from the nearby fjord as a coolant. The mine itself is partly below sea level, so there's no need for expensive high-capacity

pumps to get the seawater to the cooling system's heat exchangers. As a result, the mine will have a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of between 1.08 and 1.1 for a 5KW rack.

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The datacenter will be powered by hydroelectric and wind power, produced locally. Within a 50-kilometre radius of Lefdal Mine, there are four hydroelectric power plants, with a combined capacity in excess of 300 MW. Norwegian electricity prices are among the lowest in Europe, and recently the Norwegian government announced a reduction in taxes on electricity for datacenters in next year's national budget.

The first stage of the build-out will have a capacity of 30 MW in terms of power supply and cooling, and fully populated the datacenter will offer 200 MW. That makes it larger than both Facebook's (http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-switches-on-first-eu-datacenter-in-sweden) 120 MW datacenter in northern Sweden and the estimated size of Apple's planned datacenter in Denmark (http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-spending-1-7bn-on-two-new-datacentres-in-europe), thought to be between 100 MW and 144 MW. Read more Your next operating system: Your datacenter (http://www.zdnet.com/article/yournext-operating-system-your-datacenter/)

After the Nokia deal, Microsoft promised a $250m datacenter for Finland. So where is it? (http://www.zdnet.com/article/after-the-nokia-deal-microsoft-promised-a-250m-datacenter-for-finlandso-where-is-it/)

In pictures: Take a look inside Telefonica's Madrid datacenter (http://www.zdnet.com/pictures /in-pictures-take-a-look-inside-telefonicas-madrid-datacenter/)

In pictures: Facebook's data centers worldwide (http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/facebooksdata-centers-worldwide-by-the-numbers-and-in-pictures)

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Windows 10 tip: Access symbols, emojis, and other special characters Entering special characters, including foreign currency symbols, fractions, and emoji, is a cumbersome task on most physical keyboards. Use this hidden Windows 10 option to open an on-screen keyboard that puts all those options at your ďŹ ngertips.

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Entering special characters in Windows can be inconvenient if those characters aren't supported directly by your desktop or laptop keyboard. In earlier versions of Windows, your only options are to memorize ANSI codes (which require a numeric keypad to

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enter) or to use a separate utility like Character Map (which is

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useful but clunky).

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With Windows 10, there's an easier option: Use the touch keyboard. Don't be fooled by that name. The touch keyboard responds just fine to mouse clicks. This keyboard appears

touch-keyboard.jpg) Click image to enlarge

automatically if you're using a touchscreen-equipped Windows 10 PC in Tablet PC mode. Here's how to make sure it's at the ready even if you're using a conventional PC without a touchscreen.

Right-click any empty space on the taskbar to open the taskbar customization menu and then click the Show touch keyboard button option.

That action immediately adds a new button just to the left of the clock on the right side of the taskbar. Click that button while working in any desktop program or Windows 10 app to slide up the on-screen keyboard. Here are a few things you can do: Click any letter or symbol to see variations of that letter, including those with accents and diacritical marks. On the symbols layout, for example, click and hold the 1/2 symbol to see eight additional fractions.

Click the button labeled &123 to change from the standard QWERTY layout to one filled with symbols. Use the right and left arrows just above that button to display a second screen full of symbols, including symbols for the Euro and British Pound on a U.S. English configuration.

Click the smiley face to display a keyboard layout filled with emojis and emoticons. Use the icons to the right to change to different groups of emojis, each of which has 8 of 9

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Click anywhere outside the keyboard or resume typing on your physical keyboard to hide the touch keyboard.

Previous tip: How to access Cortana's secret calculator Next week: Another Windows 10 tip from Ed Bott (http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows10-tip-how-to-access-cortanas-secret-calculator/)

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