

The Technology Superpower You've Never Heard Of - razorburn
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/24/switch_switchnap_rob_roy/

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noonespecial
Their "man trap" and guards seem like any one of the dozens of data-
centers/co-los I go to on a regular basis. Most of theses are NOT located in
strip malls either. Many of these host servers for fortune 100's and
governments as well as ordinary schmos like me. Some even have vaults like
banks. I'm thinking the reporter just got dazzled by the _altogether ordinary_
trappings of a datacenter that does co-lo simply because reporters don't
usually visit many datacenters. I guess the man-traps and biometrics must have
seemed pretty "Star Trek" to me the first time I went to a co-lo as well.

Completely unremarkable. I call "don't believe the hype" on this one.

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jrockway
It's interesting that they have gun-carrying guards. Are you really allowed to
kill someone for unplugging Google's server?

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xirium
It may be standard practice in Brazil to issue guards with guns to prevent
wholesale theft of hardware ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182463> ).
Stolen hardware isn't worth much but the cost to replace it could be millions.

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zby
From what I've skimmed from the article - it is just a giant colocation
centre.

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pchristensen
True, but this is pretty cool:

"the company managed to acquire what was once meant to be Enron's broadband
trading hub for a song. This gave Switch access to more than _twenty of the
primary carrier backbones_ in a single location."

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falsestprophet
Why is that important?

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jsmcgd
Does anyone else feel pretty creeped out by this?

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DanielBMarkham
I get the sense that a big part of the story didn't get told here. For
instance, how did those guys get the financing to buyout the Enron stuff?
Where are the investors coming from -- locally, inside-the-company, etc.

I'd also like to hear how a relatively small startup pulled down some big
international players. Getting business from local investor-types is one
thing: loading up with huge DoD sensitive stuff isn't something you just wake
up one day and do.

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xirium
From the article: close to 70 per cent of the employees have military
backgrounds, including a COO who used to wire fighter jets.

So, they got military hosting contracts through their contacts.

