Data Center Light was featured in a newspaper again! Find out about the most affordable hosting in Switzerland, our plans to move into the Legler-Area and the first success of Data Center Light. Read the translation of the entire article here:

From a room into the Legler factory

If everything works as planned, one of Glarus many industry sectors will flourish again: Nico Schottelius will install a new data center in the Legler area in Diesbach.

by Mark Holdner (Text and picture)

Almost like Apple: Nico Schottelius and network specialist Darragh Grealish in their workspace in Schwanden

Nico Schottelius’ new project is called Data Center Light. It fits perfectly into the plans of Glarner Politian Matthias Vögli and the federal council. When the council met one year ago, it was announced by Johann Schneider-Ammann that there would be an effort to establish new industries in the canton. In the era of digitalization, they envisioned that Glarus might become a small version of Silicon Valley. Commune president Mathias Vögli also welcomed the idea of creating more jobs in the IT sector in Glarus.

Today it seems that the small Silicon Valley might actually come true. Why? Here are the two reasons.

“Swiss Goldcoast”

Let’s start with Nico Schottelius. The owner of Ungleich GmbH plans to install his data center “Data Center Light” on 7700 square meters in the Legler area. The data center functions as the brain of a company. The most important processes take place inside this brain. Nonstop data arrives, is processed, analyzed and saved. “At the moment we have five prototypes of the data processors in Schwanden”, says Schottelius. When the prototypes are tested, the team monitors the heat they produce. Usually a data center needs to be cooled down at all times, because the servers create a lot of waste heat. But the cooling system costs money. Nico Schottelius wants to avoid this by placing the Servers further away from each other. In a regular data center the servers are stacked on a rack. Schottelius will place only one server every five square meters, so that they can be cooled by air.

The so-called Virtual Machine Hosting is getting more important for medium-sized companies, but can be too expensive. Schottelius has the solution. “We provide hosting for 15 SFR per month. Therefore we offer the most affordable hosting in Switzerland.” One client is already on board. The company’s data is currently hosted in Schwanden. That is where the pilot version of Data Center light is being tested at the moment. “As soon as the financing is in place, we will move into the Legler area”, says the IT specialist. The entire project will cost around three million Swiss francs. The first steps are already made, because the regional business development has offered 500 000 francs as a sponsorship or credit. More support comes from HIAG, who owns the Legler area. “They promised to cover the costs for a fiber-optic network in the area.”

The Legler area owns on-site power generators that will ensure the emergency power supply. 15 SFR is only a small amount of money. “We won’t make enough profit on the Swiss market alone”, admits Schottelius. But he has bigger plans. He wants to attract the mass market in Europe. Everything sounds good. Schottelius insists that he is serious with the project. “Otherwise we wouldn’t invest so much work and time into in.”

Reason #2

Another benefactor for the small Silicon Valley is NüGlarus. The new initiative presented their plans to stimulate the economy of the canton in May at the Digital Economic Forum in Zurich. “The canton will change drastically with the digitalization and globalization of our economy. We want to give something back and help companies, administration and individuals to use new opportunities and niches”, explains Rolf Balmer, president of NüGlarus. The initiative wants to create the fastest and cheapest data highway in the Alps, new startup services and co-working solutions in every larger town within a few months. Balmer: ”Until 2030 we want to move the canton into the first third of the UBS innovation index.” It might be a challenge, but it is necessary to offer the younger generation a perspective.

-Fridolin, 2017/05/24