back to article ♬ Finland, Finland, Finland, the country for new cloud DCs ♬

Suomeen sovellusten kehittämistä ... sorry, let's have that in English: Google has opened its sixteenth cloud region, taking the Google Cloud Platform to the Nordic region via a data centre in Finland. The company first promised the Finnish region in January 2018. From a connectivity point of view, the Land of the Thousand …

  1. Richard Crossley
    Headmaster

    1000 Lakes?

    Wikipedia says 187,888.

    List of lakes of Finland

    It used to be a great place for a quiet holiday, fond memories.

  2. RyokuMas
    Coat

    Hmmm...

    Interesting choice there, Google. Oh wait, Finland offers high quality, state-funded healthcare! That explains everything!

    1. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: Hmmm...

      Healthcare will come in handy for the chlamydia (Finland is a high risk area for that - random fact of the day)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Google engineers

        are probably safe from a wide range of STDs

        1. choleric

          Re: Google engineers

          But not from your snark.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmmm...

        "Healthcare will come in handy for the chlamydia [...]"

        But they did pioneer vaccination against HPV.

  3. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    Re: Hmmm...

    On the other hand, from your link.

    "Employers are obliged by law to provide occupational healthcare services for their employees, as are educational establishments for their students and staff. This can be done on public, or private sector."

    I suppose it's the same in many countries.

    Of interest would be to know the level of tax they pay in Finland.

    Regarding lakes, no country has as many as Canada, not surprisingly.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm...

      From what I understand, it's high, but you get what you pay for. Good healthcare, well maintained roads built properly to handle the cold.

      You now, the things you would expect.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmmm...

        " well maintained roads built properly to handle the cold."

        Driving in the north of Finland on holiday in the 1980s we soon became used to the road sign that indicated a stretch of a major road damaged by winter freezing. It wasn't just a question of potholes - there was no artificial surface left - and there were lots of small rocks. You picked your path carefully at slow speed.

        There was usually no other traffic - seeing another car was a rarity.

        1. Lars Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Hmmm...

          "There was usually no other traffic - seeing another car was a rarity.".

          Not that surprising, the density of people in northern Finland (Lapland) is 1.98/km² (98 984,36 km², 183 775p (year 2009)).

          With that population density the UK, 242,495 km2 would have a population of some 480.000 persons.

          I spent 2 week tracking and fishing in a group of eight years ago, we did not meet an other soul during that time.

          PS. it's not the winter freezing but the spring thaw that breaks things, a never ending problem even on the best roads at times.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmm...

            "Not that surprising, the density of people in northern Finland (Lapland) is 1.98/km² (98 984,36 km², 183 775p (year 2009)).

            We did hit a long traffic jam when we left Finland and joined the Norwegian E6 coastal road at Alta - with everyone heading towards North Cape. In 1979 it was an unsurfaced road - and was nose to tail with tourist camper vans that made slow work of some of the twisting gradients. There were times when a Range Rover's road clearance and low gears proved useful.

            We left the tourists behind after we by-passed North Cape and turned south at Kistrand to head down to Savonlinna, Helsinki, and Åbo en route to Stockholm again - and finally to Bergen for the ferry home.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm...

      Of interest would be to know the level of tax they pay in Finland.

      Using 2016 Eurostat data (couldn't be bothered to look harder), Finland's tax to GDP ratio is about 44%, compared to around 47% in France, 41% in Germany, 35% UK. For a range of reasons, a good rule of thumb is that the more north westerly an EU country is (British Isles excepted) the higher the rate of tax.

      That of course includes corporate taxes and indirect taxes like VAT, but the most significant difference in terms of effective personal tax rates is probably the various allowances, credits and offsets, as well as the tapering of both tax rates and reliefs.

      1. Lars Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Hmmm...

        @Ledswinger, I was referring to Google, but I could indeed have been more precise about that.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Finland is cold, so The Chocolate Factory also gets to trumpet the green credentials of the location because the DC is cooled using Gulf of Finland seawater to ameliorate the heat made by its servers, [...]"

    It is cold in winter - but summers can be hot with the long days. The Gulf of Finland is part of the Baltic Sea. They are both relatively shallow and less salty - owing to inflowing rivers and the constricted connection to the North Sea through the Danish Straits.

    While the Baltic freezes in winter - in summer it warms up nicely. Living in a summer cottage on the coast near Stockholm my bath nights were in the Baltic. You could buy a special soap that would lather in that brackish water. Near the end of October the water started to get colder - and felt more like an English coastal sea summer temperature.

    1. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      "While the Baltic freezes in winter".

      I know that has happened but not that often completely so I had to check it.

      "It is known that since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely a total of 20 times. The most recent case was in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since that date."

      "On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered at the annual maximum for about 45% of its surface area. ".

      That 45% is in the northern part between Finland, Sweden and Estonia. And not for that long.

      But I do agree most summers are fine and the water is warm enough, but it gets a lot colder if you dive a bit.

      "

  5. fordie

    I for one…

    appreciate the use of Monty Python songs in headlines

    1. Shadow Systems

      Re: I for one…

      It's not the song that I mind so much as it is the inclusion of [curse & vitriol laced thirty minute rant that turns the air blue with incandescent hatred] emoji.

      If ElReg feels the need to resort to pictures instead of words for the headlines, you've just started down the slippery slope of discriminating against those with anything but perfect vision. Thanks a lot.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: I for one…

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  6. Kabukiwookie

    Use of public infrastructure

    Aside from the fact that you're still giving your data to a US company, I hope the Finnish government is actually taxing Google, instead of giving ridiculous tax breaks.

    Google is using the highly skilled workforce and public infrastructure, which is all paid for through taxes. At the very least they should contribute to Finnish society in the form of taxes, instead of leeching off of public infrastructure paid for by Finnish citizens, while moving profits to a tax haven.

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