Fortress Boosts Speed in America

October 4, 2011 · by Aleksander Aas

With close to 80 billion web pages, or 11.4 petabytes served through Opera Mini each month Opera need some serious hardware to serve almost 130 million Opera Mini users. With numbers like these, we don't mess around when it comes to servers. Previously we announced our Icelandic data center Thor, this time we would like to introduce you to the Fortress Colocation Centers in the United States (not to be mistaken for the Zombie Fortress, but just as secure).

What's so great about this new data center? Well, first of all this should help us provide our American users with even faster browsing. Even more important, our new data center follows our commitment to the environment. The ~~Zombie~~ Fortress Data Center uses 80% renewable energy. We will continue to track and share energy efficiency and the efforts we take to improve it!

Readers' comments 16

Left under the original article, as archived.

MConorTuesday, October 4, 2011 9:25:24 PM
It's also in Minecraft... right? Please?
Anton DiazTuesday, October 4, 2011 9:33:22 PM
Minecraft :3
d4rkn1ghtWednesday, October 5, 2011 2:56:17 AM
This is great! Opera Mini and Turbo will be even faster now!
Cutting SpoonWednesday, October 5, 2011 3:25:30 AM
Were any pixel zombies harmed? Because I certainly hope they were.
Enoch 'Robot Boy' Appiah JuniorWednesday, October 5, 2011 3:53:49 AM
I wonder wher i get serve. From the States, Iceland or Norway.
Erkki RuohtulaWednesday, October 5, 2011 4:03:20 AM
A bit disappointing you did not tell more details about the servers and the colocation center. I have long been a satisfied Opera Mini user on various Nokia phones, where it is the only browser that is tolerably fast on GPRS and 3G connections, and would like to hear about what kind of infra is needed to support the magic.
Cutting SpoonWednesday, October 5, 2011 5:46:26 AM
I imagine Opera's caching and load balancers must be fairly spectacular. The extra work to manage their actual my.opera domain is also pretty amazing, because the pregenerated pages need to be available in multiple languages.

I'm putting something below. It has NOTHING to do with Opera ASA or the company infrastructure, but discusses the size and expense of running a popular image site. As to how much bigger Opera is.....use your imagination.

"http://g.ehgt.org/statuschart.png

As for the actual server hardware that runs it - this is most of it, anyway. All the servers except four or five have some flavor of Intel Xeon CPU, but I can't be arsed to look up the specific model for each. A couple of servers don't directly participate in hosting the site, so they aren't listed.

1x: 16GB RAM, 4x 73GB 10k RPM SAS (HW RAID-10), 10 TB @ 100 Mbit
1x: 16GB RAM, 2x 73GB 15k RPM SAS (HW RAID-1), 4 TB @ 100 Mbit
2x: 4GB RAM, 4x 2TB disk, unmetered 100 Mbit
2x: 4GB RAM, 1x 1.5 TB disk (OS), 3x 3TB disk (SW RAID-5), unmetered 100Mbit
2x: 4GB RAM, 2x 500GB disk, unmetered 100 Mbit
2x: 16GB RAM, 12x 1TB disk (2x HW RAID-1 OS, two 5x HW RAID-5), unmetered 100 Mbit
1x: 4GB RAM, 2x 1TB disk (HW RAID-1, 10x 2TB disk (two 5x HW RAID-5), unmetered 100 Mbit
1x: 4GB RAM, 1x 1TB disk, 5x 2TB disk (SW RAID-5), 30 TB @ 1 Gbit
1x: 2GB RAM, 1x 250GB disk, 2 TB @ 100 Mbit
2x: 8GB RAM, 2x 32GB Intel X-25E SSD (RAID-1), 2x 160GB Intel X-25M SSD, unmetered 100 Mbit
1x: 16GB RAM, 1x 80GB Intel X-25M SSD, 5TB @ 100 Mbit
4x: 16GB RAM, 1x 300GB Intel 320 Series SSD, unmetered 100 Mbit

All those goodies, put together, cost about $56k USD per year to lease and host. And no, it's very unlikely that you could do it cheaper."
Elizabeth GebresenbetWednesday, October 5, 2011 9:40:22 AM
that's better
Aleksander AasWednesday, October 5, 2011 8:48:24 PM
Originally posted by Ruohtula:

A bit disappointing you did not tell more details about the servers and the colocation center.

I'll do my best to see if there is any more info we can share about these things! Let me investigate a bit!
johnson kamandaThursday, October 6, 2011 4:22:49 AM
opera speed is lyk lighting.
Charles SchlossFriday, October 7, 2011 12:53:03 PM
emmanuel okahFriday, October 7, 2011 1:10:13 PM
i love opera news moreden anyoder tin in dis earth,opera u are best in connenting and borwers faster
meegaanSaturday, October 8, 2011 7:06:35 AM
Nie czaje.
ZBARTA GABRIELSaturday, October 8, 2011 9:48:45 PM
What about NO-OPERA-SEAUS, why 'colossus' is located in Norway?
GR££／\／Sunday, October 9, 2011 8:47:16 PM
ive seen the math and a guy said that you would have killed bout 40,000 zombies before they begin to pile up and allow zombies on the lowest window
JulianMonday, October 10, 2011 11:42:47 PM
Interesting I want know more about that