I would like to know why Yandex though that opening data centers in western counties would be a good idea. Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.
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Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
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Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#22I would like to know why Yandex though that opening data centers in western counties would be a good idea. Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.
How should they have known? Russia attacked both Georgia and Ukraine before, and the West never reacted in any meaningful way.
Yandex bought the land in 2013, so it was before the invasion of Crimea.
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#23I would like to know why Yandex though that opening data centers in western counties would be a good idea. Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.
Russia and Europe spent a lot of time and invested a lot of faith to building commerce, in both Europe and Russia the prevailing idea was that the interdependency is a force for peace and stability and it seemed to be mostly working for a while.
(Also Russia is also a very risky business environment, so hedging...)
(Also^2 Yandex is not under sanctions, the current outage doesn't seem to be about sanctions according to the news)
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#24Article is misleading. Yandex is not part of the sanctions yet. Electricity was cut simply because they failed to make a new contract. Finnish source: https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-2000008786328.html
Yep, their electricity sales contract ~~expired~~ (EDIT: ended for unspecified reasons) and they don't have a new contract. Their electricity transfer contract is still valid because their Finnish company is not a part of sanctions. (Electricity sales and transfer is separate in Finland.) When they get a new electricity sales contract, then the transfer company will reconnect power.
I think the only matter here related to the war could be that electricity sales companies might be reluctant to sell a contract to them, due to PR reasons. But I bet one of them will, and they will get their power back.
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#25How hot does waste heat from data centers get? Is it up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit? Seems like it would be difficult to efficiently transport that heat into nearby homes.
The Nordic countries are famous for pioneering low temperature district heating. This can be as low as 50 C. Sorry, no citation, this is what I heard at a project meeting on district heating networks in Switzerland. District heating with such (relatively) low temperatures is no problem, the energy to pump is much less than the energy to heat. My house is heated from nuclear waste heat pumped more around 10 kilometers…
This is the English part of the website for the Danish District Heat Association.
My apartment and office (like much of Copenhagen) are heated through incinerated waste.
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#26How hot does waste heat from data centers get? Is it up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit? Seems like it would be difficult to efficiently transport that heat into nearby homes.
A lot of housing in Sweden is heated using left over heat from the industry (“spillvärme”). The industries actually rely on this for cooling.
From what I hear, it’s usually pretty expensive compared to ground/air-to-water heat pumps (1 SEK vs 0.4 SEK per kWh of heat)
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#27I would like to know why Yandex though that opening data centers in western counties would be a good idea. Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.
Should Google be preparing for sanctions against the US the next time they invade somewhere?
Companies usually don't plan for unprecedented actions.
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#28I would like to know why Yandex though that opening data centers in western counties would be a good idea. Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.
How should they have known? Russia attacked both Georgia and Ukraine before, and the West never reacted in any meaningful way.
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Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#29I would like to know why Yandex though that opening data centers in western counties would be a good idea. Surely they knew that, as a Russian company, if their government ever becomes aggressive, they'll also be targeted by sanctions.
You could also look at it as having one foot out the door.
Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think anyone expected them to go quite as berserk as Putin has. It's easy to forget that for several years, Putin was actually a halfway-decent steward of the Russian economy. That's what makes this whole thing so weird... he could have gone down in history as one of Russia's more respected leaders. All he had to do was not rock the boat. Instead, he literally sank it. Putin simply had no reason -- certainly…
Which years?
In his first term he delivered a number of useful economic reforms with a team of liberal economists. Taxes, land ownership, banking, bankruptcy etc. The economic block in the government remains very professional and impartial even now. The only thing Russia really needed to become a normal state was to reform judicial branch, police and security services.