Apple To Spend 750 Million In Galway

keithclancy · 23-02-2015 5:05pm

RobertKK wrote: »

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/23/8089311/apple-european-data-centers-nearly-2-billion

Also protect Europeans from the NSA...

And a Tiny office over a Centra to watch it all.

http://qz.com/162791/how-a-bureaucrat-in-a-struggling-country-at-the-edge-of-europe-found-himself-safeguarding-the-worlds-data/

MadYaker · 23-02-2015 5:43pm

Apparently there'll be 100 people working there full time once it opens. That's a big deal for a small town like Athenry.

Baggy Trousers · 23-02-2015 5:51pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Why does Galway get all the good stuff?

Galway does well in IT alright - top of my head they have Cisco, Avaya, Fidelity, IBM, SAP, Oracle, EA Games, HP and now Apple.

MadYaker · 23-02-2015 5:57pm

Baggy Trousers wrote: »

Galway does well in IT alright - top of my head they have Cisco, Avaya, Fidelity, IBM, SAP, Oracle, EA Games, HP and now Apple.

NUIG and GMIT churn out 100s of IT graduates every year between them, as well as that Galway is seen as a "cool" city and a desirable place to live by young people.

Grayson · 23-02-2015 5:58pm

Baggy Trousers wrote: »

Galway does well in IT alright - top of my head they have Cisco, Avaya, Fidelity, IBM, SAP, Oracle, EA Games, HP and now Apple.

3 of those have huge facilities in Dublin. IBM, SAP and HP. Oracle used to be in Dundalk. Are they still there?
How big are these facilities? is it a division like dell hand with manufacturing in one location and admin/PM/CS in Dublin?

marklazarcovic · 23-02-2015 6:00pm

athenry town is 1 min from the motorway, any idea where the site will be? great news for the town itself ,local suppliers etc

23-02-2015 6:12pm

18MonthsaSlave wrote: »

You are reading a different press release to me.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0223/682120-apple-investment-galway/

Connacht tribune article saying its 300 onsite jobs when its up and running.

Avada · 23-02-2015 6:17pm

18MonthsaSlave wrote: »

How many Irish builders do you think have the skills to build this datacentre.
Also, as it is for consumer data I don't think the datacentres will feature the levels of security a business datacentre would possess. The datacentre next door to me is built with layers and you only get entry to the innermost layers if you have sufficient security clearance.
The pictures of the datacentre also make it appear to be very low rise.

I'd imagine most of the building work is fairly standard. It's the stuff inside that's specialised.

MadYaker · 23-02-2015 6:18pm

Huxley Unimportant Timber wrote: »

Connacht tribune article saying its 300 onsite jobs when its up and running.

Id be amazed if that's not a mistake. I don't think theres a data centre anywhere in the world that has 300 people working onsite.

23-02-2015 6:47pm

MadYaker wrote: »

Id be amazed if that's not a mistake. I don't theres a data centre anywhere in the world that has 300 people working onsite.

Maybe they plan on doing some other stuff on the site also.

signostic · 23-02-2015 6:56pm

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Aren't there plans to also develop some small island off the west coast of Ireland for tech as well? I remember someone posting about it on here and calling it sillicon valley-esque

Craggy Island maybe....

irishgrover · 23-02-2015 7:09pm

ffs, this is good news. It's not amazing news but it is good news. There are a number of things at play here, including environment, location, infrastructure, EU data laws, US court cases, gov grants etc etc. However it is good news. A high end data centre, as this will be, will attract initial ancillary employment, but in addition should act as some sort of catalyst for additional employment and business opportunities. You cant spend a billion dollars without some benefit...
There is opportunity for continued expansion around the corridor between athenry and Galway. In addition when the motorway opens between athenry and Gort it will make the whole Limerick - Galway corridor much more accessible in terms of people and product...
I really don't understand the begrudging nature of some commentators.

AllGunsBlazing · 23-02-2015 7:38pm

Good news, but fukc me, RTE news were laying it on a bit thick. The way they were spinning it every person in Athenry just became an overnight millionaire....

Anyway this development has to surely encourage more investment and development in broadband infrastructure?

renegademaster · 23-02-2015 7:43pm

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

In fairness, it is good news regardless of the number of jobs. It shows real confidence in Ireland's electricity and broadband networks.

how so, apple have been here for years and they're not exactly the first to need our wonderful electricity and broadband networks

billbond4 wrote: »

Yeah and even the figure of 850million is missleading, thats the whole cost of the datacenter which will be running apple servers.
So just wondering how much the building will cost to build as thats the real figure of the investment?

these sudden announcements are extremely well timed too in all fairness

mary90 wrote: »

Sorry, it was actually the Connacht Tribune

"Apple executives clarify 300 full-time jobs on-site in Derrydonnell when facility up-and-running. Construction jobs are separate to that"

Low wage jobs are better than no jobs at all. It all looks good for the west to be attracting them to invest in the first place no?

low paid jobs are better than no jobs at all?? how could a company up to it's neck in profits yet paying damn near no tax at all anywhere in the world look good?

RomanKnows wrote: »

What about all the providers of ancillary services to the centre? Delivery spares, designing and building the electricity sub station, installing the fibre?

Only today the ESB announced they are hiring 300 new electrical apprentices. They are hiring engineering, telecoms and IT staff like they are going out of fashion. They must think Ireland is on the road to future growth. You don't make an investment in people like that without strong evidence of going to need them.

This is more good news for Ireland. The recovery is happening. This is bad news for people who believe in leftie and shinnernomics.

are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is on that?

Huxley Unimportant Timber wrote: »

300 jobs for co. Galway is very big news though regardless of how big paying they are why do you feel the need to try and run it all down as if its nothing.

Then there are all the job during construction and all the local businesses that will benefit from a big new facility and all the people working there.

There are lots of people being forced to live in Dublin or worse again leave the country, this may be an opportunity for some to return home and that can only be a good thing.

data centres only need a handful of staff to maintain them!! don't believe the hype

RobertKK wrote: »

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/23/8089311/apple-european-data-centers-nearly-2-billion

Also protect Europeans from the NSA...

what about GCHQ?? :pac:

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Yeah, Microsoft has a landmark case up in American court about that. If they lose, then any company with an American base will see a huge amount of customer flight.

GCHQ!!

MadYaker wrote: »

Apparently there'll be 100 people working there full time once it opens. That's a big deal for a small town like Athenry.

apparently isn't worth the paper it's written on;)

marklazarcovic wrote: »

athenry town is 1 min from the motorway, any idea where the site will be? great news for the town itself ,local suppliers etc

local data farm suppliers?

Huxley Unimportant Timber wrote: »

Connacht tribune article saying its 300 onsite jobs when its up and running.

must be true so

The Diabolical Monocle · 23-02-2015 7:54pm

saved by hipsters ..... ????

no.

never.

jumps off cliff.

marklazarcovic · 23-02-2015 8:06pm

monorail now and athenry's set

marklazarcovic · 23-02-2015 8:09pm

renegademaster wrote: »

local data farm suppliers?

im guessing the staff will have a canteen/kitchen ,fresh produce ..etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

gandalf · 23-02-2015 8:15pm

The Datacentre itself won't provide a lot of direct jobs. I reckon it will provide around 50 - 100 staff with jobs. Most of them will be on shift. Looking at the size of the campus it will probably need a security team of a minimum of 50 people as well as that will be 24x7 365 days a year of cover. A lot of electrical infrastructure and cabling will be outsourced to sub contractors so the companies that win those contracts will probably be able to hire more people. They could conceivably come from Dublin though, unless there are SLA's in place that mean they have to be on site within an hour.

The biggest bonus for that area is that you will have a number of service providers who will be providing them with some very fat internet pipes. Businesses in the vicinity should rightly expect to have a lot more options for internet connectivity come 2017.

The other effect is that it gives the West of Ireland a higher profile in the states and it could tip more companies to locate in that side of the country.

Doom · 23-02-2015 8:15pm

Egginacup wrote: »

I've worked for many tech companies and have visited datacentres all over the place and they're eerie fucking places. One place in particular was nightmarish. One security guy and one or two others kind of just checking on a few basic things. The actual server farm was one of those lights-out operations, just the hum of hundreds of servers, switches and routers and tape backup robots rolling around on their pre-assigned routes loading tapes to and from storage cabinets.

Skynet will be started in Ireland... :-0

Idbatterim · 23-02-2015 8:45pm

Company that pays f*ck all tax in Ireland plans to hire 100 people to run a data center.

Woo hoo.

how much tax might they pay here if we doubled it?

Egginacup · 23-02-2015 9:13pm

JohnnyChimpo wrote: »

The loose hairs get stuck in the servers fans, major fire hazard. jfc man have you never been inside a fully monkey-operated data centre?

Not to mention the static electricity that builds up when they scratch themselves and then zaps the processors of every system they touch.

sasta le · 23-02-2015 9:14pm

Rents going up with new tech jobs

Wompa1 · 23-02-2015 10:04pm

Word of caution. Apple has a history of announcing large projects like this an not carrying through.

Bait and switch!

We should all be weary about throwing all of our eggs in the IT basket but whatever. Woohoooooo!

Also, having worked in places with large data centers, I'd question the jobs number too. I wonder what the actual jobs are, maybe they will use some of the office space for something unrelated to the actual data centers, that would be cool but can't see that when they already have such a large presence in Cork....it could be another case of hundreds of jobs created in x number of years when the actual number is much lower...

BUT any new jobs has to be a good thing. Particularly somewhere like Galway where so many people are unemployed or working for a public sector department of some kind. It'll patch up that leaky bucket a little

Wompa1 · 23-02-2015 10:10pm

sasta le wrote: »

Rents going up with new tech jobs

There's a lot of stories about Tech workers in San Francisco being discriminated against because they are driving up the rent and hurt the 'artistic' image of the city.

Soon the crusties will rise up against the Tech workers....

Dman001 · 23-02-2015 10:22pm

Fack me, the amount of naysayers here. Even if they employ zero people, it still shows that one of the biggest companies in the world has great confidence in Ireland and our infrastructure. Not to mention the positive publicity it gives to our already-major IT sector here.

Wompa1 · 23-02-2015 10:29pm

Dman001 wrote: »

Fack me, the amount of naysayers here. Even if they employ zero people, it still shows that one of the biggest companies in the world has great confidence in Ireland and our infrastructure. Not to mention the positive publicity it gives to our already-major IT sector here.

The internet in Athenry it alright now, check out Eircom eFibre marp...whatever about Apple, I don't have confidence in the Irish network infrastructure..

You're right about the publicity though. If Microsoft win their court case, it will be even better publicity.

We should also be weary of relying on IT too much though, it's a sector that's quickly automating itself. Thus everybody who has worked in a company with a data center saying the 100 jobs is BS...

gandalf · 23-02-2015 10:30pm

Wompa1 wrote: »

Word of caution. Apple has a history of announcing large projects like this an not carrying through.

Bait and switch!

Well we should know soon. Given they expect to start operations in 2017 they will have to turn sod soon.

We should all be weary about throwing all of our eggs in the IT basket but whatever. Woohoooooo!

Too late for that

But you are right we need to be building indigenous companies that could turn out to be the Apple of the future. For that we need decent infrastructure around the whole country not just Dublin. At least if this comes to fruition the infrastructure over that side will be boasted massively.

Also, having worked in places with large data centers, I'd question the jobs number too. I wonder what the actual jobs are, maybe they will use some of the office space for something unrelated to the actual data centers, that would be cool but can't see that when they already have such a large presence in Cork....it could be another case of hundreds of jobs created in x number of years when the actual number is much lower...

Given the size of the buildings on campus at 166,000 square metres once all the buildings are commissioned I do think those numbers are accurate even just for the basic hands and eyes type work as you will need a minimum of three shift rotations or maybe four.

Given the amount of grounds again you would need a good number of security over a traditional Datacentre.

BUT any new jobs has to be a good thing. Particularly somewhere like Galway where so many people are unemployed or working for a public sector department of some kind. It'll patch up that leaky bucket a little

Amen.

Wompa1 · 23-02-2015 10:34pm

gandalf wrote: »

Well we should know soon. Given they expect to start operations in 2017 they will have to turn sod soon.

Too late for that

But you are right we need to be building indigenous companies that could turn out to be the Apple of the future. For that we need decent infrastructure around the whole country not just Dublin. At least if this comes to fruition the infrastructure over that side will be boasted massively.

Given the size of the buildings on campus at 166,000 square metres once all the buildings are commissioned I do think those numbers are accurate even just for the basic hands and eyes type work as you will need a minimum of three shift rotations or maybe four.

Given the amount of grounds again you would need a good number of security over a traditional Datacentre.

Amen.

Stick Solarwinds on the servers and depending on the make of the server, you'll get alerts before anything ever happens. You really wouldn't need many people these days.

I worked in a company with a data center for a year with a couple thousand blades. With capacity for a lot more, the company was going to lease space to others. In that year, I had to go into the data center twice.

Once to replace a drive, once to replace a controller. And we got the alerts before it became a problem. It's mad how efficient things have become

Baby Jane · 23-02-2015 10:37pm

JONJO THE MISER wrote: »

Great news,Apple is to spend 750 million on a new data centre in Galway creating hundreds of jobs, take that Dublin.
Hopefully more companies will follow and locate in the west.

Great news for Galway!
Is the "take that Dublin" thing serious or a joke?

gandalf · 23-02-2015 10:45pm

Wompa1 wrote: »

Stick Solarwinds on the servers and depending on the make of the server, you'll get alerts before anything ever happens. You really wouldn't need many people these days.

I worked in a company with a datar center for a year with a couple thousand blades. With capacity for a lot more, the company was going to lease space to others. In that year, I had to go into the data center twice.

Once to replace a drive, once to replace a controller. And we got the alerts before it became a problem. It's mad how efficient things have become

Oh I am intimately aware of the inner workings of a Datacentre

The thing that is getting me is the scale of this place. At 166,000 Square Metres it is huge. That is what has me thinking that between 50 - 100 employees is accurate. I suppose it depends on what kind of coverage they have for none office hours.

Apple To Spend 750 Million In Galway

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