

Linode announces new datacenter location, Japan - keidian
http://blog.linode.com/2011/09/19/linode-cloud-asia-pacific/

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422long
This is a huge win for anyone hosting data that falls under Japan's very
strict privacy and data export restrictions, and shows Linode is definitely
competing for space in the professional hosting market.

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.

~~~
stingraycharles
_This is a huge win for anyone hosting data that falls under Japan's very
strict privacy and data export restrictions, and shows Linode is definitely
competing for space in the professional hosting market._

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.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patriot-act-
can-access-eu-based-cloud-data/11225)

[http://www.freedomworks.org/issues/privacy/for-policy-
makers...](http://www.freedomworks.org/issues/privacy/for-policy-
makers/european-union-data-safe-harbor)

[http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Admits-Handing-over-
Eu...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Admits-Handing-over-European-
User-Data-to-US-Intelligence-Agencies-215740.shtml)

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dutch-government-to-ban-us-
pro...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dutch-government-to-ban-us-providers-
over-patriot-act-concerns/58342)

etcetera.

~~~
smackfu
I think you are misreading that comment, in that it isn't about whether the US
can get to your data, it's about whether you as a provider can meet the
Japanese laws with a US datacenter.

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TheRevoltingX
Cool, I can't say enough good things about Linode. I've been using it with
great results. I have gotten some random reboots though, but I'm using the
basic plan and it hasn't been bad at all for the price.

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beaumartinez
This is very forwards-looking, if only because it improves access from China
and "the growing Asia Pacific demand for low-latency cloud services".

~~~
yichi
From personal experience, there are not much difference in access time from
China to servers hosted in Japan or United States. They are both slow as hell
to access. (If there are any difference in access time it would be very small
for any users to notice). The cause may be the fact that Chinese ISP's proxies
all requests to foreign sites.

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.

~~~
flocial
If you're serving China, is HK that much better? When I went there and talked
to people they mentioned the need to account for the North/South telecom
divide. It's essentially two countries in terms of data center infrastructure.

~~~
wisty
No, HK not noticeably better than Japan, and Japan is only a little better
than the US.

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.

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carl_
I know there are a lot linode users here but is it really Hacker NEWS
suitable? I'm not saying that I don't want to see some of the cool/interesting
stuff they do, but this isn't it.

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.

~~~
arkitaip
We got lots of people looking for hosting solutions, so I think it's very
relevant to HN. It's also interesting from a community POV simply because
Linode is used by many HNers.

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.

~~~
yesimahuman
It's not pathetic. No need for meta comments if others have voted it up.

------
redcap
While this is a big deal for anyone hosting data in Japan, I question why it
had to be in Tokyo.

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.

~~~
shimon_e
It looks like their IP is residential. This ISP even has 1gbps lines
commercially available in Tokyo from what I understand. I wouldn't be shocked
if just put up a rack in up in the ISPs datacenter to make use of the cheapest
bandwidth rates. They probably calculated most of their bandwidth in Japan
will be in this network and they have good US peering.

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.

~~~
ra
>Since, one rack today can be stuffed with 90 servers each up to 20x more
powerful than what was around in 2005

90 servers in a rack? Do you mean VPS? if not please could you elaborate?

~~~
shimon_e
Using half depth motherboards a rack is able to support 90 servers. Some
providers like OVH in Europe focus on only building such racks.

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rgrieselhuber
This is such a big deal. Congrats guys.

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donw
I live in Tokyo, and have been wanting this for years. Finally!

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latch
FWIW and YMMV

To Japan from HK 9 hops. Latency ~75ms. Bandwidth ~ 2.2MB/sec.

To Fremont from HK 14 hope, Latency ~155ms. Bandwidth ~ 1.1MB/sec

~~~
codexon
Just curious, is Japan a good place for serving Russia and Australia?

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ajtaylor
Our linode is currently in London (I didn't set it up...), but I'm probably
going to request a move to the Tokyo datacenter in the next week. Ping times
to Tokyo (136 ms) are literally half what they are to London (297 ms) and
still better than Fremont (208 ms). Seems like a no-brainer to try moving it.

~~~
getsat
Where are you located? Your ping times don't mean much without a reference
point.

~~~
shimon_e
Based on those times I'd say he is in Russia or very close to an Australia-
Japan peering exchange.

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thegenemachine
I've been using Linode for a while now, and I am very pleased to watch them
grow like this. Great job!

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sharmajai
On a related note, does anybody know of a good vps provider for serving sites
to India?

