Iceland says its cool climate and abundant supply of geothermal and hydroelectric energy makes it a prime spot for IT data centers.  But a cloud hosting data center may want to think twice about planting their data center so close to a volcano.

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted for the first time in nearly 200 years on Monday, sending ash nearly 40,000 feet into the air and shutting down heavily traveled air routes in northern Europe and Scandinavia.

“It’s unclear if the ash fall is affecting Iceland’s IT infrastructure, as Channelweb.com’s attempts Thursday to contact Icelandic solution providers were unsuccessful. But according to one local news report, the ash fall is the largest Iceland has seen since an eruption in 1918, and scientists aren’t ruling out the possibility that the volcano could keep erupting.”

Data centers are constructed to withstand most environmental extremes and natural disasters, but volcanic ash is known for its ability to wreak havoc on all different types of desktops, servers, and basically any type of IT infrastructure that has moving parts.  This could be catastrophic to all the new cloud servers and hybrid servers that are coming into the market.  I guess we’re going to have to keep our Icelandic data center plans on the back burner!

“Iceland is the only country in Western Europe that still has extensive, untapped resources of competitively priced hydroelectric power and geothermal energy. It is the only western country that produces all its electricity from emission-free, sustainable natural resources,” according to the organization’s Web site.

Read Full Volcano Data Center Story