This is a huge win for anyone hosting data that falls under Japan's very strict privacy and data export restrictions, and shows Linode is definitely competing for space in the professional hosting market.
Most providers offer a Japan hosting solution as the second facility in the APAC region after opening in Singapore or Hong Kong. Sing/HK is used for the bulk of the hosting business so typically the first offered but a Japan presence is next up, regardless of size, to offer a complete global solution for customers who handle data that must be within the Japanese borders in-place.
This is a huge win for anyone hosting data that falls under Japan's very strict privacy and data export restrictions, and shows Linode is definitely competing for space in the professional hosting market.
Since Linode is a US business, the government can still request data that is hosted on these servers, regardless of Japan's strict privacy restrictions.
Cool, I can't say enough good things about Linode.
I've been using it with great results.
I have gotten some random reboots though, but I'm using the basic plan and it hasn't been bad at all for the price.
From personal experience, there are not much difference in access time from China to servers hosted in Japan or United States. They are both slow as hell to access. (If there are any difference in access time it would be very small for any users to notice). The cause may be the fact that Chinese ISP's proxies all requests to foreign sites.
If your customers are indeed coming from China, the most logical place to host your server would be Hong Kong IMO. It has good access time from the Chinese mainland and from other Asian countries.
I know there are a lot linode users here but is it really Hacker NEWS suitable? I'm not saying that I don't want to see some of the cool/interesting stuff they do, but this isn't it.
If there was a HN post every time a provider launched a new PoP we'd be swamped.
We got lots of people looking for hosting solutions, so I think it's very relevant to HN. It's also interesting from a community POV simply because Linode is used by many HNers.
I would like to add that it's pathetic that you got down-voted; it's further proof of how flawed HN moderation system really is.
While this is a big deal for anyone hosting data in Japan, I question why it had to be in Tokyo.
The earthquake in March suggest that it might be prudent to have data retention in other areas of the country.
While Tokyo is a big city and that comes with pluses for access, it has the following minuses:
1. real estate is expensive relative to the rest of Japan.
2. summer is hot - why have data centers in Tokyo and not up in the mountains or up north where it's cooler?
3. the Greater Tokyo area is due for a major earthquake. In addition, there's historical data dating back centuries showing that a big quake in one area is followed by big quakes in other areas of the country (although fingers crossed that we don't see a 9.0 quake).
There has been a lot of press over the past few months about companies in Japan putting effort into backup facilities that aren't in the Tokyo area. After the quake in March there were blackouts and a reasonable amount of chaos - just imagine what it would be like if the Tokyo quake actually occurs.
All of Japan is prone to earthquakes. The latest one actually happened to the North, in a cooler area than Tokyo. That said, Tokyo isn't particularly hot for Japan. Sure Hokkaido and Tohoku are much cooler, but Tokyo is in the coolest half of Japan.
Ping is a lot more important than an eventual earthquake even in Japan. Especially considering that all of Japan is prone to earthquakes. If you go up North, the Kinki area (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) will be quite far away, and lines will have much less redundancy than in a highly populated area.
In short, making a decision based on a possible huge natural disaster in the Kanto area would be a massive knee-jerk reaction.
It looks like their IP is residential. This ISP even has 1gbps lines commercially available in Tokyo from what I understand. I wouldn't be shocked if just put up a rack in up in the ISPs datacenter to make use of the cheapest bandwidth rates. They probably calculated most of their bandwidth in Japan will be in this network and they have good US peering.
Since, one rack today can be stuffed with 90 servers each up to 20x more powerful than what was around in 2005, I doubt they really require more than 1 well configured rack for a long time. When the time comes to add a second rack they always have the option to place it in another Japanese city, if they don't decide to goto another Asian country instead.
Considering the above, I doubt the savings were worth moving out of Tokyo.
[+] [-] 422long|14 years ago|reply
Most providers offer a Japan hosting solution as the second facility in the APAC region after opening in Singapore or Hong Kong. Sing/HK is used for the bulk of the hosting business so typically the first offered but a Japan presence is next up, regardless of size, to offer a complete global solution for customers who handle data that must be within the Japanese borders in-place.
[+] [-] stingraycharles|14 years ago|reply
Since Linode is a US business, the government can still request data that is hosted on these servers, regardless of Japan's strict privacy restrictions.
See, for example:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patri...
http://www.freedomworks.org/issues/privacy/for-policy-makers...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Admits-Handing-over-Eu...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dutch-government-to-ban-us-pro...
etcetera.
[+] [-] TheRevoltingX|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beaumartinez|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yichi|14 years ago|reply
If your customers are indeed coming from China, the most logical place to host your server would be Hong Kong IMO. It has good access time from the Chinese mainland and from other Asian countries.
[+] [-] carl_|14 years ago|reply
If there was a HN post every time a provider launched a new PoP we'd be swamped.
Disclosure: I work in the hosting industry.
[+] [-] arkitaip|14 years ago|reply
I would like to add that it's pathetic that you got down-voted; it's further proof of how flawed HN moderation system really is.
[+] [-] cmer|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redcap|14 years ago|reply
The earthquake in March suggest that it might be prudent to have data retention in other areas of the country.
While Tokyo is a big city and that comes with pluses for access, it has the following minuses:
1. real estate is expensive relative to the rest of Japan.
2. summer is hot - why have data centers in Tokyo and not up in the mountains or up north where it's cooler?
3. the Greater Tokyo area is due for a major earthquake. In addition, there's historical data dating back centuries showing that a big quake in one area is followed by big quakes in other areas of the country (although fingers crossed that we don't see a 9.0 quake).
There has been a lot of press over the past few months about companies in Japan putting effort into backup facilities that aren't in the Tokyo area. After the quake in March there were blackouts and a reasonable amount of chaos - just imagine what it would be like if the Tokyo quake actually occurs.
[+] [-] muyuu|14 years ago|reply
Ping is a lot more important than an eventual earthquake even in Japan. Especially considering that all of Japan is prone to earthquakes. If you go up North, the Kinki area (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) will be quite far away, and lines will have much less redundancy than in a highly populated area.
In short, making a decision based on a possible huge natural disaster in the Kanto area would be a massive knee-jerk reaction.
[+] [-] shimon_e|14 years ago|reply
Since, one rack today can be stuffed with 90 servers each up to 20x more powerful than what was around in 2005, I doubt they really require more than 1 well configured rack for a long time. When the time comes to add a second rack they always have the option to place it in another Japanese city, if they don't decide to goto another Asian country instead.
Considering the above, I doubt the savings were worth moving out of Tokyo.
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|14 years ago|reply
You're not living in it.
[+] [-] rgrieselhuber|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donw|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] latch|14 years ago|reply
To Japan from HK 9 hops. Latency ~75ms. Bandwidth ~ 2.2MB/sec.
To Fremont from HK 14 hope, Latency ~155ms. Bandwidth ~ 1.1MB/sec
[+] [-] itsnotvalid|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codexon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thegenemachine|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharmajai|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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