Apple to produce data center cabinets at defunct GT Advanced sapphire plant
Apple is repurposing GT Advanced's former sapphire plant in Mesa, Ariz., to produce cabinets for its other data centers, according to a notice published by the U.S. government on Monday.
Found in the Federal Register, the notice says that Apple sought approval from the Foreign-Trade Zones Board to manufacture "finished products" in a zone exempt from customs duties. Specifically, the city of Mesa, filing on Apple's behalf, noted that Apple has "repurposed the site as a global data command center," which will "conduct high-tech manufacturing of finished data center cabinets for other data centers."
Mesa originally wrote to the FTZB in June, noting that Apple wanted to meet a "an aggressive production go-live timeline" in September 2016.
"The nature of the product is not for end users but for other global data centers what will be supported from the site," the city said.
A Business Insider source claimed that the servers Apple uses in its Oregon and North Carolina data centers are currently built and tested on-location, but that the work should soon be centralized in Mesa.
Before becoming a data center, the Mesa facility was originally a GT plant meant to supply sapphire for Apple products. GT wasn't able to meet Apple demands however and suddenly went bankrupt, ultimately landing the complex in Apple's hands. The latter began hiring in October and has said it will have at least 150 people on staff, eventually adding more including a dedicated executive.
A March 2016 report said that Apple was deeply invested in producing its own servers and networking hardware, concerned that tampering in third-party products -- for instance by spy agencies -- could create serious vulnerabilities.
Found in the Federal Register, the notice says that Apple sought approval from the Foreign-Trade Zones Board to manufacture "finished products" in a zone exempt from customs duties. Specifically, the city of Mesa, filing on Apple's behalf, noted that Apple has "repurposed the site as a global data command center," which will "conduct high-tech manufacturing of finished data center cabinets for other data centers."
Mesa originally wrote to the FTZB in June, noting that Apple wanted to meet a "an aggressive production go-live timeline" in September 2016.
"The nature of the product is not for end users but for other global data centers what will be supported from the site," the city said.
A Business Insider source claimed that the servers Apple uses in its Oregon and North Carolina data centers are currently built and tested on-location, but that the work should soon be centralized in Mesa.
Before becoming a data center, the Mesa facility was originally a GT plant meant to supply sapphire for Apple products. GT wasn't able to meet Apple demands however and suddenly went bankrupt, ultimately landing the complex in Apple's hands. The latter began hiring in October and has said it will have at least 150 people on staff, eventually adding more including a dedicated executive.
A March 2016 report said that Apple was deeply invested in producing its own servers and networking hardware, concerned that tampering in third-party products -- for instance by spy agencies -- could create serious vulnerabilities.
Comments
I'd like to think this concern is unjustified paranoia... but maybe not.
Loading up Gmail takes about 5-9 seconds; iCloud Mail takes about 20-30 seconds. I don't even bother browsing my photo library using iCloud Photos; what a lethargic POS. Google Photos? A luxurious, snappy breeze to use.
Apple is so far behind in the cloud game it's embarrassing.
As for servers, that's news to me (I just read the article mention in this article but it doesn't say much about servers) and I really wish they would spread the wealth and produce a reincarnation of the Xserve for the small business and even home market that's actually a server and not a repurposed desktop. If you have to create a production line for the number of servers these data centers take, then why not make a fun (thousand) extra?
Not to say your complaint isn't valid, but you pick an odd article on which to point it out.
Is there some other problem you have with Apple that a free manufacturing facility might help solve?
That to me would be the best of both worlds, give us all the function we wanted xServes for in the first place but with modern cloud syncing joy.
On my iMac -
Gmail - 1.5 seconds.
iCloud Mail - Nearly instantaneous
Photo library - Fired it up for the first time just now, it synced 2500 +/- photos in about a minute.
Maybe it's not Apple that is so far behind, but maybe your Internet connection is?
Although I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start contributing to Open Compute Project and using that sorts of rack and hardware.
It reads more like they will be fitting all the hardware into the cabinets, wiring it up, testing then wrapping them up to send out to other data centres as they build out the capacity globally. So that a small team of trained people all work in the same location and are the only ones who ever touch the equipment in the racks.
Also sounds like they will have this centre as a back to base to call in to for maintenance and monitoring. Still, they could well station all staff working on server software and rumoured custom hardware here so all these teams can bounce off each other.
http://www.amada.com/america/