CyberBunker: the full story / GOVNOC
GOVNOC: a bunker data centre for the government
This archive started life on govnoc.com, and that domain turned out to have a bunker story of its own. It has nothing to do with CyberBunker, but it shows how popular the bunker data centre idea was in the Netherlands around 2010.
NL / 2009GOVNOC Databunker
In 2009 and 2010 govnoc.com belonged to GOVNOC Databunker, short for "Governmental Network Operation Center". Its homepage offered "ICT (security) solutions for government organisations" and announced an opening in the first quarter of 2010. [1]
The site had a small library of eight documents, from "Tier 4 Datacenter" and "Factsheet Bunker" to "Worldwide trend: data centres in bunkers". Only two survive in the Internet Archive, both made on 24 December 2009. [2] [3] They describe a "BunkerDatacenter" in a former nuclear bunker, aimed squarely at government customers, with a separate e-mail address for "government relations". Among the claims:
- the only data centre in the Netherlands immune to natural disasters, attacks "and other kinds of disaster";
- 21 °C on every data floor, whatever the weather outside;
- a site 0.6 m above sea level (NAP) that could cope with water up to 3 m above NAP, and run independently for a full year;
- a "double" and "military-grade" EMP shield;
- access only after a combined iris scan and fingerprint check, with cameras, phones, pagers, PDAs and laptops banned.
"HET IS TEN STRENGSTE VERBODEN FOTO'S TE MAKEN" (taking photographs is strictly forbidden), says the access policy, in capitals. Company planning, network structure and security equipment were "STRIKT GEHEIM": strictly secret.
What the brochures never say is which bunker this was. The only address given is a visitors' office in the Zurichtoren in The Hague, by appointment. Nothing in the surviving material links GOVNOC to CyberBunker or to the Kloetinge bunker, and the site disappears from the archive after 2010. Search engines still occasionally ask govnoc.com for the long-gone "Factsheet Bunker".
For a bunker data centre that did open, in the former CyberBunker bunker itself, see BunkerInfra and the Kloetinge bunker.
FAQFrequently asked questions
What was GOVNOC?
GOVNOC, short for Governmental Network Operation Center, was a planned bunker data centre for Dutch government organisations that used govnoc.com in 2009 and 2010. Its brochures promised a disaster-proof data centre in a former nuclear bunker, but never said which bunker. It has no known link to CyberBunker. [1]