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20 Million Opera Mini users move to Iceland

By Joseph D. Lienjdlien. Monday, November 1, 2010 3:26:04 PM

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20 Million Opera Mini users move to Iceland

Today Opera Mini operations begin at the new environmentally friendly Thor Data Center in Iceland that supports many users from Europe, Africa, and Asia.


Today Opera switched over a substantial part of Opera Mini traffic to the brand new Thor data center in Iceland. Traffic from users from Europe, Africa, and Asia now get their data via Iceland. Although there is no visible change to users, this is an important step in expanding Opera's capacity to support more users while maintaining the utmost in speed and reliability.

Why Iceland?

Because of the nature of Opera Mini, all the data for the browser must be processed by Opera servers. With Opera Mini's massive growth over the years, it has been important for Opera to expand its servers, but to do it in a way that is secure, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly. Iceland has access to abundant renewable energy, and cool air. Therefore, cheap, green power is available and the cold air can be used to cool the servers instead of stacks of power-hungry air conditioning units.

With this new expansion, Opera is able to provide service for more users while further reducing the environmental impact of its services. Check the pictures below!

Those pipes must be for cooling
Those pipes must be for cooling. 		All locked away, safe and sound.
All locked away, safe and sound.
Two giant shipping crates full of servers
Giant shipping crates full of servers. 		They look cool in blacklight
They look cool in blacklight!

A tour of Opera's headquarters in Oslo, NorwayDo you like Asus?

Comments

Pardeep Singh GrewalPardeep333 Monday, November 1, 2010 3:43:57 PM

Thanks For Your Priceless Job.......

d4rkn1ght Monday, November 1, 2010 3:51:37 PM

up

Bright chidoziebrightchidozie005 Monday, November 1, 2010 7:37:35 PM

THANKS OPERA TEAM, U GUYS ARE THE BEST

dizdizlexik Monday, November 1, 2010 9:20:36 PM

Yes!

Khaled KhalilKhaled-Khalil Tuesday, November 2, 2010 2:00:00 AM

great, but wouldn't it be better if the new location be somewhere farther than the original one, and closer to the graphical median of users ?
Iceland is also Scandinavia, far north, that makes data traffic to and from so many users across the world pass the longest possible path.
i think more geographic decentralization will be in the benefit of Opera.

redlamborsche Tuesday, November 2, 2010 2:34:13 AM

best ever water cooling, straight from the sea!

cma7s on aolcma7s Tuesday, November 2, 2010 7:32:54 AM

THE BEST GETTING BETTER ROCK ON OPERA

Joseph D. Lienjdlien Tuesday, November 2, 2010 9:38:32 AM

Originally posted by Khaled-Khalil:

wouldn't it be better if the new location be somewhere farther than the original one, and closer to the graphical median of users ?



I can see how you would think that. However...
The latency is actually pretty minimal over the kind of high-bandwidth fiber that they are using up there. So a difference between 9,000 km and say, 3,000 km might mean a latency difference of oh, 10ms at worst. But in reality the real bottleneck is going to be switching and routing hardware and such along the way, which is all top notch in our facility in Iceland.

Abhinavdecodedthought Tuesday, November 2, 2010 11:57:57 AM

I love the last pic up smile

osebe Tuesday, November 2, 2010 1:10:08 PM

global warming comes to iceland!furious

minodesign Tuesday, November 2, 2010 2:30:43 PM

Bello, ed ecologico.

Jin ZhaoJinz420 Tuesday, November 2, 2010 3:35:26 PM

lol gotta love the fact that the technician can honestly say.. I'm working inside of shipping container right now...

Moviuro Tuesday, November 2, 2010 10:13:46 PM

Originally posted by osebe:

global warming comes to iceland



it may be a bit less to pay for but the planet ill pay for it.
Just so that u know, Internet is a major cause of global warming not because of serveurs, but because of cooling engines... :'(

Khaled KhalilKhaled-Khalil Wednesday, November 3, 2010 12:28:40 AM

thanks Joseph, it's clear now smile

Hari Mlandsfahastra Wednesday, November 3, 2010 1:49:50 PM

coolman

Illur Vondssonillur Wednesday, November 3, 2010 6:11:45 PM

some slight misunderstanding here about global warming, among other things
a) there is no water used in the cooling systems at that data center
b) the energy used is 100% clean - uses only renewable energy
c) there are no cooling engines or gases or fluids used that can escape into the environment...just warm air!

hope that makes your day a little brighter : D

Thomas Oneclicksamoht1 Thursday, November 4, 2010 11:22:37 AM

Well Done Opera star star star star star

party GREEN BROWSING party

I made a post in OM forum to spread your clever inviromental friendly choice!
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=794142

colin mccabemadrabaiste Saturday, November 6, 2010 1:22:14 PM

Really impressive idea. In our college in Dublin we spend a fortune cooling our data centre. Wonder if I should propose moving to Iceland!

Thomas Oneclicksamoht1 Saturday, November 6, 2010 1:41:00 PM

Just move the servers, you can stay in Dublin smile

I wonder if we are going to see server providers flok to Iceland... A new big "thing"... sherlock

RIZALRizalharahap Friday, November 19, 2010 7:21:20 PM

cool

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