| Does Dealing with Datacenters Mean Moving Them Outside? |
| Written by Jaymi Heimbuch | ||
| Monday, 28 July 2008 | ||
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Cooper is exploring how to eliminate electrical transmission costs associated with running datacenters by placing the datacenters at the source of renewably generated power. In other words, on the roofs next to solar panels, in the fields next to wind towers, etc. Cheaper fiber optic cables would link the datacenter to the user. Well, there is one way to reduce costs, but it sure brings up a whole lot of practicality questions. The feasibility issue is handled by virtualization and fast Ethernet, getting into the realm of cloud computing – computing jobs can be shipped virtually to datacenters no matter where they are located. But Hooper still has to figure out things like software that will monitor the electricity generation, prioritize jobs, and then send those jobs to the datacenter attached to the turbine that happens to be spinning right then, or the solar panel that happens to be in the sunshine at that moment. All fine and dandy still, but we then have to factor in installation and maintenance costs, and how to get a repair person out to these potentially remote areas. There is no idea for increasing the use of renewable power that I’m willing to wholly discard – every idea right now is worth exploration. But this sounds like it is going to need a whole lot more exploration before it becomes a practical solution to datacenters’ use of energy. Via Earth2Tech; Photo of conceptual installations via Sun.com
Comments
(3)
Mistake
written by EV , July 28, 2008
Solar Datacenters Exist
written by John (Vertography) , July 28, 2008
There are at least two solar powered datacenters in the US that I know of. My own blog is running in one of them: iMountain.com's Pomona, California 100% solar powered datacenter.
While they do have a grid connection in case of need, they claim they've never used it. Instead, all their power needs come from solar panels on their building.
Missing the point: Energy Effiency
written by Carl Hage , July 29, 2008
The real problem with data centers is that the computers are made to use about the same amount of power when idle as when busy. Since there is no "energy guide" like automotive MPG, buyers don't make decisions based on total cost including energy (with cooling). Using multi-core processors with a low-speed ultra-low-power processor (to keep things going at 97% idle), the electronics can be powered off for the milliseconds not in use, reducing power by >10X. Many other techniques are possible for large data centers. (How many leave all machines in a cluster on all the time?).
The solution is to have a set of standard benchmarks to measure Wh/M-pages (watthour/megapage) in a typical web server environment (not worst case). Then require manufacturers and sellers to post a sticker with peak/typical/idle energy use. Instead of building (subsidized) renewable or polluting energy to power a data center, it's cheaper and easier to build processors to consume less energy. |
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Fiber does not carry power. What was actually said:
Datacenter at site of energy creation, fiber linking datacenter to the end user.