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After dismantling the city's data center and moving it three times to avoid hurricanes, the IT team for the city of Altamonte Springs, Fla., decided to try a different approach. Instead of spending millions of dollars to build a facility that would keep water out, they relocated the data center to an existing structure that was originally designed to keep water in -- a 770,000-gallon water tank.
The city's water tank data center: Wings were added to each side, one for networking equipment, the other for administrative offices.
Larry DiGioia, director of information services for the central Florida city of 45,000, says the move made perfect sense. The dome-shaped tank offered 8-inch-thick walls of reinforced concrete and was situated only 100 feet from City Hall, where a single server room housed the city's previous data center.
