From nuclear fallout shelter to data center (Paris)(blog.scaleway.com)
blog.scaleway.com
From nuclear fallout shelter to data center (Paris)
https://blog.scaleway.com/meet-fr-par-3/
18 comments
Fun fact: Xavier Niel, founder of Scaleway, is a cataphile and used to hang out in Paris' catacombs quite a bit back in the day. Apparently he even enjoys a private access to the catacombs from the basement of the building he lives in.
Does anyone have (development/production) experience using Scaleway? Are they roughly comparable to Digital Ocean..? How's price/reliability/support?
Thanks!
Thanks!
They aren’t even close to Digital Ocean in terms of quality of service, support, performances or documentation. They are more like OVH, another french provider.
A lot of software limitations of their products aren’t documented, an example: don’t expect to put more than 40k files in one single object storage bucket. It’s written nowhere and when you’ll start encountering strange errors with your apps you’ll have to deal with the support team. First you need to pass the triage level where people have no clue about whatever is technical, then after a few days you will go higher in the chain and finally be redirected at someone in charge of the production who will announce you that kind of limitation.
Disclaimer: I’ve been a customer since the very start of Scaleway (attracted by the low prices), then got dissatisfied a lot and asked my account being deleted last week.
A lot of software limitations of their products aren’t documented, an example: don’t expect to put more than 40k files in one single object storage bucket. It’s written nowhere and when you’ll start encountering strange errors with your apps you’ll have to deal with the support team. First you need to pass the triage level where people have no clue about whatever is technical, then after a few days you will go higher in the chain and finally be redirected at someone in charge of the production who will announce you that kind of limitation.
Disclaimer: I’ve been a customer since the very start of Scaleway (attracted by the low prices), then got dissatisfied a lot and asked my account being deleted last week.
That's unfortunate. The OVH / low cost comparison (as in the sibling comment) is not encouraging. I'll stay away for sure. Thank you
Scaleway get the benefit of the doubt from me, but OVH? Shame on me for needing to see _two_ nightmare scenarios unroll before fleeing from OVH...
They are more like OVH, they come from low-cost bare-metal and have created other offerings around cloud services.
Thanks, I appreciate it
They used to be very low cost, with many rough edges.
I think the rough edges got fewer, they started offering a lot more managed/PaaS services, and de facto raised prices (mostly by cutting a lot of the low-cost offerings and/or making them a lot less attractive, plus some actual price increases).
I am still using them for hobby projects and didn't have issues with my running instances, but did occasionally run into issues when stopping/starting them (e.g. resource exhaustion, long delays, etc.).
They really like obfuscating the actual price by showing everything in hours instead of months, so you're paying "zero point zero something" with no easy way to see what the actual cost per month is. It's possible to find the information but they really push the hourly price.
I think the rough edges got fewer, they started offering a lot more managed/PaaS services, and de facto raised prices (mostly by cutting a lot of the low-cost offerings and/or making them a lot less attractive, plus some actual price increases).
I am still using them for hobby projects and didn't have issues with my running instances, but did occasionally run into issues when stopping/starting them (e.g. resource exhaustion, long delays, etc.).
They really like obfuscating the actual price by showing everything in hours instead of months, so you're paying "zero point zero something" with no easy way to see what the actual cost per month is. It's possible to find the information but they really push the hourly price.
Terrifying. Thanks for sharing that
Interesting -- this reminds me of the the Greenbrier Bunker[0] which was a secret fallout shelter intended to house Congress in the event of a nuclear strike on DC. It was also decommissioned in the early 90s and ~20yrs later repurposed as a secure offsite data storage facility. It's worth the $40 tour if you're ever in the area.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island
Hello and welcome to the underground data center I work for :) http://tour.deac.eu/Grizinkalns.html
Located in Riga, Latvia, that is now underneath a city park. It was once a nuclear shelter in times of CCCP / USSR. Visitors of park were once interviewed do they know where do those doors in the park lead and what is currently there... people didn't know :)
Located in Riga, Latvia, that is now underneath a city park. It was once a nuclear shelter in times of CCCP / USSR. Visitors of park were once interviewed do they know where do those doors in the park lead and what is currently there... people didn't know :)
"we mixed the resin with silica to prepare the surface for the next step, which was the laying of the tiles for the métro. For this operation, over 3,000 square meters of tiles were required!"
Do they provide any benefit other than look? At first glance, it seems like a big expense to garnish the walls of a data center. So I'm curious if the ceramic tiles provide any other benefit, or is it all just eye candy for tours of potential investors/customers?
Do they provide any benefit other than look? At first glance, it seems like a big expense to garnish the walls of a data center. So I'm curious if the ceramic tiles provide any other benefit, or is it all just eye candy for tours of potential investors/customers?
Looks like the same "eye candy" as having a data-center inside Paris overall.
To me, it looks a lot like a "fun project" for them, a bit useless though: even-though it has quite reinforced walls, it's very small for a DC, it required a huge lot of work to make it ready for servers, the building itself must have cost a huge amount compared to a location in an industrial zone, it's not the best place in a city to put equipment like generators, there is no space for expansion, connectivity for networking and power with multiple source must have been a big challenge due to constrained access, ...
Finally, knowing quite well how the Parisian metro gets infiltrations all the time in the stations, I find it crazy of them to take it as reference: if their situation is comparable, they are in for a lot of trouble over time.
To me, it looks a lot like a "fun project" for them, a bit useless though: even-though it has quite reinforced walls, it's very small for a DC, it required a huge lot of work to make it ready for servers, the building itself must have cost a huge amount compared to a location in an industrial zone, it's not the best place in a city to put equipment like generators, there is no space for expansion, connectivity for networking and power with multiple source must have been a big challenge due to constrained access, ...
Finally, knowing quite well how the Parisian metro gets infiltrations all the time in the stations, I find it crazy of them to take it as reference: if their situation is comparable, they are in for a lot of trouble over time.