A Ministry of Defence bunker, at a secret location in the north-east of London, is to be outfitted into a secure hosting facility, following its purchase for an undisclosed sum by AL Digital.

The facility will become AL's second nuclear bunker/co-location centre and the firm said it had made the purchase after strong demand for storage in its first underground location, dubbed The Bunker.

The Other Bunker, as the second site will become known as, is set to house its first servers by mid-2002.
According to the company blurb both facilities offer "the ultimate in protection from a myriad of attacks including; crackers, terrorist attack, electro-magnetic pulse, HERF weapons, electronic eavesdropping and solar flares".

Independent security experts described the radiation protection features as a "gimmick". Mark Read, professional services consultant at MIS Corporate Defence, said companies which are serious about protecting their IT infrastructure, should back up data, and make sure access to hosting facilities is tightly controlled.

Putting servers is nuclear bunkers is "a little bit of overkill", according to Read, who notes the hosting facility, however secure, would be useless if its upstream connection to the Internet is lost. ®