NTT DoCoMo Data Center shrugs off earthquakes

Japan’s largest telecom operator, NTT DoCoMo, has recently unveiled their latest data center (the fifth, in fact), where this 16-storey building that is located right smack in earthquake-prone Tokyo (heck, the whole of Japan is prone to earthquakes for that matter), where the data center will hot thousands of servers that will deliver cloud computing services to DoCoMo’s enterprise clients. This building was specially designed to be earthquake resistant, thanks to a special rubber isolation device that is capable of letting the building sway by almost 60 cms from the base without causing any permanent damage at all.

This is impressive, and it will certainly go a long way in assuring enterprise clients that their precious data remains safe and sound in the event of an emergency. Of course, as you know from the recent nuclear disaster that happened in Japan, even the best of man’s so-called failsafe ideas are not foolproof no matter how that seems to be the case on paper.

Apart from the above mentioned, this building is also said to come with standby generators that will power the servers just in case there is any electricity outage. Specially constructed to maintain a small carbon footprint, it will rely on LED lighting to further conserve energy while harvest rain water as much as possible – hopefully none of that radiation water will drop by and get consumed. Last but not least, there is also a special kind of concrete used that will rely on thermal insulation to keep the air conditioning bills to a minimum. Will we see more buildings like this in the future? Perhaps.

Edwin Kee
Categories: General
Tags: docomo, ntt docomo