As part of its mission to become a digital city and to lay down the foundations for the future, the local government of Paris has invested close to $18 million (€16 million) in a new data center. The aim is for the data center to be scalable and adaptable, in terms of future-state technology, for the next 50 years. The center, which from the outside resembles any other office building, is located north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement.
According to Paris IT head Joachim Labrunie, who is quoted by Co Fund: “We want to be able to tell citizens where their data is, we want to save some money and we want some stability by avoiding regular moves.”
The most interesting aspect about the project is that Paris has elected to invest heavily in a physical infrastructure, at the same time that many businesses are adopting cloud technology. The reasons for adopting this approach, according to a review by TechCrunch, is to ensure that Parisian officials maintain control of public data, rather than trusting the data to a third party to host elsewhere.
In addition, technologists have made the case that a physical infrastructure will enable more reliable services to be provided. There is additionally a case for lowering the environmental impact of an elaborate information technology system. The data centre controls its heat output through cold water. In order transfer the data centre’s heat, architects have designed a process that injects warm water, diverted from the water cooling system from the centre, into the heating system of residential buildings next door.
A further factor behind the creating of the data center is the desire to control costs. An alternative to building the data centre was renting one. When officials looked into the relative costs, and the tendency for rents to increase in four-year cycles, building a center from scratch in a building owned by the municipal authority remained the moist economic option.
A similar initiative has begun in London — the London Digital Security Centre, which has a narrower remit but is based on the same desire to control data directly. The London Digital Security Centre is a joint venture between the Mayor of London, the Metropolitan Police Service and the City of London Police. The aim is to assist businesses in growing and innovating through operating in a secure digital environment.
Frankfurt has also been developing a physical data center to serve its business district, signalling that several major cities appear to be eschewing the cloud option.
