Hi all, Though this isn't exactly on target, I thought you all might want to see this, those of you who keep a wary eye on Bechtel and friends. Leap to your own conclusions about this article's info please. Peace, Preston ------------------------------ Wednesday, April 12, 2000 Net hardware at secure and secret California site http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20000411_4011.html SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) - Caged like a criminal and guarded 24 hours a day, the Internet was finally put in its place Tuesday. That place, at least according to officials at Equinix Inc., is a nondescript warehouse off a faceless freeway "somewhere in Silicon Valley." Sheathed in Kevlar to ward off potential artillery attack, fitted with biometric hand-geometry scanners to identify unapproved intruders and equipped with generators to ensure uninterrupted electric supply come power grid meltdown or earthquake disaster, the building sits amid the strip malls and condominium developments of America's high-tech heartland with no sign to advertise its existence. Equinix insists on anonymity for its new high-tech facility, officially dubbed the Silicon Valley Internet Business Exchange Center, or IBX. In fact, in a sign of the company's dedication to its cloak-and-dagger image, visitors Tuesday were required to sign nondisclosure agreements promising not to reveal where the high-security warehouse actually is. But company officials hope it will eventually be an important part of a new network of "neutral" sites housing the computer routers, servers and other hardware that makes Internet business run. 30 CENTERS PLANNED "We know these are important places to keep secure," Equinix founder and Chief Executive Al Avery told a group of industry analysts and journalists gathered for the opening of the IBX, one of about 30 scheduled to be built worldwide over the next four years. "It's where the virtual world meets the physical world," Avery said. "It's a mixture between Fort Knox and Mission Impossible." Founded in 1998 by Avery and Jay Adelson, who built the Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX) for Digital Equipment Corp., Equinix has over $315 million in financing, including investment from the Reuters Group Plc. through its Greenhouse Fund. In partnership with world engineering giant Bechtel, Equinix has embarked on a $1.2 billion global IBX program. The Silicon Valley facility is the third to become operational after openings in Newark, New Jersey, and the Washington area. The idea behind the IBX centers is simple: provide a single, secure location for Internet companies ranging from content providers to e-commerce giants to set up the computers that make their businesses run. The company is designed to take advantage of what it sees as a sea change in the way the Internet works. What started three decades ago with a few tentative online contacts between universities and grew into a loose network based on government and military computers has evolved into a globe-spanning conglomeration of public, private and commercial computers engaged in myriad tasks. QUICK LINKS By placing key computer equipment under one IBX roof, companies can link directly to other, related Internet players with clear and quick connections that will eliminate network kinks and bottlenecks, the company says. They will also be able to share maintenance costs and make new business alliances -- all while safe in the knowledge that, should a tank-driving anti-Internet extremist trundle down a nearby highway, their business computers will be protected. "This is exactly the type of ecosystem we were looking for," said Mark O'Leary, general manager of ExciteAtHome's AtWork division, which announced on Tuesday a deal to deploy its services to IBX clients. Taking visitors on a tour of the 133,000-square-foot Silicon Valley IBX on Tuesday, Equinix's Adelson pointed out the building's Kevlar skin, the concrete planters designed to thwart car bomb attack, the biometric hand scanners, the bulletproof glass. Inside, computers belonging to clients such as Enron , iBeam, MCI Worldcom and NorthPoint Communications whir within individual "cages" while Equinix staffers monitor temperature and humidity as carefully as workers at a nuclear reactor. While conceding that armed attacks on data centers were fairly low on the computer security worry list -- way below hackers, for instance -- Adelson said Equinix's own customers asked for the Mission Impossible-style precautions. "They've asked us to provide this level of protection because of their fear of what the future could bring," he said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get paid for the stuff you know! Get answers for the stuff you don’t. And get $10 to spend on the site! http://click.egroups.com/1/2200/3/_/475667/_/955542809/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
