how data centers are placed abroad - the atlantic

7/24/2019 How Data Centers Are Placed Abroad - The Atlantic

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http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/the-strange-geopolitics-of-the-international-cloud/416370/?single_page=true 1/5

Road trips are always defined by the places there isn't enough time to see.

Writing about The Cloud through the lens of a road trip is tricky, because

those gaps of things unseen tend to be on other continents. The presumed

technical advantage of The Cloud is that it's a global apparatus, and here

we were barely able to take in the lower forty-eight, barely able to take in a

single city. While our 2007 Toyota Tacoma unfortunately could not

traverse the Atlantic Ocean, heres a quick overview of some aspects of

The Strange Geopolitics of the InternationalCloud

How cold weather, taxes, and sovereignty dictate the placement of data

centers overseas.

I N G R I D B U R R I N G T O N

N O V 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 | T E C H N O L O G Y

Shipping containers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

Bob Riha Jr / Reuters
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/http://www.theatlantic.com/author/ingrid-burrington/


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international cloud infrastructure that you might want to know about.

Come see where the data lives

Read more

The things that shape data-center geography outside the U.S. aren't allthat different from things that shape data-center geography in the U.S. In

general, large companies building cloud infrastructure seek access to land,

and appealing climatesenvironmental, financial, and political. Places

with high concentrations of Internet exchanges, network infrastructure,

U.S.-friendly governments, existing tech sectors, or highly educated

populations (Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Singapore) becomelogical locations for data centers. Proximity to this Internet backbone

reduces latency and it's easier to hire people to work there. Scandinavia, a

region popular with companies like Google and Facebook, isn't

particularly rife with backbone or dense with Internet exchanges, but it

makes up for this with cool climates, access to hydroelectric and

geothermal power, and vast expanses that instill bothexistential despair

and stoicism.

In the case of Ireland, its data-center economy has been fueled in part by

its cool climate, but also by its 12.5 percent corporate tax rate, which has

led lots of tech companies to open offices and move assets to the country.

In an unusual reversal of the typical narrative, massive infrastructural

developments are following the data centers, withnew submarine cableslanding in Ireland to serve the country's tech sector.

Climate and latency aren't the only reasons for a company to expand its

data-center footprint. As The Cloud absorbs more and more global data

and the phrase post-Snowden sounds less and less pretentious, there's

increasing international interest in data sovereignty, the idea that a

citizen's personal data stays within their country's borders.

Russia enacted a data sovereignty lawjust last summer. This rising interest
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/07/21/russian-data-localization-law-spurs-data-center-strategy-changes/http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/hibernia-networks-extends-submarine-cable-cork-ireland-provides-access-us-u/2014-12-22https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvRFJFUnREhttp://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/beneath-the-cloud/http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/beneath-the-cloud/


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in personal control over and localized access to data was a big factor in

Microsoft's decision to build two new data centers in Germany with an

established German data partner, Duetsche Telekom. Essentially,

Microsoft customers whose data is stored in these new German data-

center regions will be managed and maintained by Deutsche Telekom

instead of Microsoft by default.

Microsoft probably knows better than any other company the importance

of defining who has jurisdiction over user datathey've been in a legal

battle over it in the U.S. for almost two years. At the heart of the case is

whether the U.S. government has jurisdiction to request data located in a

data center in Ireland if that data belongs to an American Microsoft user.The government argues that where Microsoft stores the data is immaterial

they're an American company and since Microsoft can access data

stored anywhere while physically in the U.S., it doesn't matter where that

data's stored. Microsoft challenged the warrant on the grounds that a

search doesn't happen at the point of acessing the data (in this case, in the

U.S.) but where the data is stored. As of September 2015, the challenge tothe warrant was still in dispute.

Technically, the Microsoft Dublin warrant case is less about data

sovereignty and more about the material essence of data. The American-

government argument against data sovereignty tends to be more

economics than materiality or even national securityat least that's the

argument made in the chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership tradeagreement that forbids member countries from enacting data-sovereignty

laws.

The agreement does take pains to suggest exceptions for [ensuring] the

security and confidentiality of communications, but also insists that

countries not be required to have data centers in member countries in

order to do business there (which is a cool move for a government

desperate to hold onto the third-party doctrine). Similarly, Microsoft's
https://blogs.microsoft.com/firehose/2015/11/11/expanding-customer-choice-the-microsoft-cloud-in-europe/


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press statements carefully couch its recent developments in Germany in

the language of choice and flexibility, delicately framing privacy more as a

consumer preference.

To talk about The Cloud's global shape and politicsis to talk about the planet's shape and politics.

All this to say that most of these examples and geopolitical disputes are

still, unfortunately, framed within a U.S.-centric lens. I haven't even

gotten into the political negotiations of an endeavor likeAmazon Web

Services's Chinaregion, or thatAlibaba already has data centers operatingin Silicon Valley. Or how totally broken Australian broadband

infrastructure is. Or how most of the criteria that leads to data-center

development in specific parts of the world also skews away from places

that currently lack connectivity, where initiatives like the Facebook-led

Internet.org try to bridge gaps not with long-term infrastructural

investment, but with laser drones andtiered-access schemes. I get dizzytrying to see this whole thing, and it shows.

In a weird sort of prologue to this road trip, I'd picked Sam up at the Long

Beach Airport, which meant we drove through the Port of Long Beach on

our way up to the University of California, Los Angeles, and the supposed

birthplace of the Internet. Driving through the Port of Long Beach, the

largest and busiest port in the continental U.S., is kind of like going to a

theme park for logistics enthusiasts. Shipping containers stood in stacks

the size of small buildings, sometimes organized by color and sometimes

in chaos, framed by flocks of construction cranes. All I wanted to do was

take them all in, pause at the eerie infrastructural sublime of globalization

and the infinite arrays of logically arranged, discrete objects on that

horizon. But I was the one driving, and I had to keep driving. I onlyglimpsed the grandeur of the container port perihpherally, constantly

aware of all I was missing.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/where-was-the-internet-born/413221/http://www.wired.com/2015/05/internet-org-expands-net-neutrality/http://venturebeat.com/2015/10/08/alibaba-the-amazon-of-china-opens-its-second-data-center-in-silicon-valley/http://www.amazonaws.cn/


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This is sometimes what it is like to try and talk about The Cloud. In its own

eye-rollingly Borgesian way, it maps back out onto the world with a one-to-

one seamlessness, and to talk about The Cloud's global shape and politics

is to talk about the planet's shape and politics. For now, for the stories I set

out to find and tell, I had to keep the global cloud in my peripheral vision.

We hadn't even made it to Iowa yet.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

INGRID BURRINGTONis an artist and writer based in New York. She's a fellow at the Data and

Society Research Institute.

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