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North Slope Server Farm
A nameless cringer writes: "Netricity proposes an Internet data storage center on Alaska's North Slope to take advantage of the isolation (maybe a polar bear would break in), cold (easy to A/C; just open some vents to the outside), and abundant natural gas to run the generators. There's already a fat pipe running down the Alaska Pipeline to 'america.' Oil pipeline & data pipeline -- two good targets ... " And like anything else about the North Slope, raises hard-to-answer questions about the preservation of nature vs. human comfort.
Yea but how likely is it that some dipshit in a backhoe is going to be out in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness digging up your fiber? Oh wait, nevermind. Backhoes must be magnetically attracted to fiber. :-)
I repeat: Go away, you Lower 48er environmentalist whacko luser. You don't have to live in Alaska: you've probably never been here. You've just swallowed some eco-terrorist propaganda about how precious our hunk of frozen tundra is. You're as clueless as the people who're wondering about volcanoes on the North Slope.
Just because you dweebs down there screwed up your own backyards doesn't mean that you have some "been there, done that" morally superior position from which you can dictate to Alaska on how to balance environmentalism and economics.
You want to talk to Alaska from the environmental high ground? Fix your own back yards, and stop trying to meddle in ours.
That fat pipe runs to the "Southern" coast of Alaska... no further... either they are going to have to run fiber to the lower 48 (submarine cable or down ALCAN)... or have to do a satellite shot.. and satellite shots to Geosynchronous Satellites... from far North Lattitudes.... isn't the same cup of tea as from lower 48... if you don't understand the phenomena alluded to in this posting... then you don't know SHF RF in general or the dynamics of Satellite Links... from any perspective... Look it up... the Russians use Molnya (sp) orbits for Satellite comms... very different approach to business than GeoSync orbits..
Idiot.
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Sounds like an ideal place to work to me, check on the servers in the morning and go climb a mountain in the afternoon.
As far as ambient cooling, it's easy to forget that it can get fairly warm up there for 2-3 months of the year. The record high in Barrow, at the extreme northern tip of Alaska on the coast, is 78F. Inland (except at high elevation) it's going to be somewhat higher, and the normal summer temperatures will be substantially higher (Barrow's normal diurnal temperature range in mid-July is 34-46F). So there will definitely need to be air conditioning -- very substantial air conditioning -- for the 1-5% of the year when the temperature exceeds 50F. The daily insolation up there is also very high, due to the continuous daylight in the summer, even if the sunlight's weaker than at lower latitudes.
To take this to extremes, the average annual temperature in Verhojansk, Russia is about 2F. Problem is that the record low is about -90, but the record high is 98F, which is probably a bit higher than the record high in Key West. Average case planning isn't enough; they've got to take into account worst cases, too. That means figuring out what to do up to temperatures of maybe 85F or higher.
Dumping excess heat in the permafrost isn't a very good solution, either. Ice isn't a terribly efficient conductor of heat (neither is stagnant water), so it will simply melt the permafrost. That's bad news, because suddenly you're sitting on top of a swamp and your foundation isn't much good. Not to mention that it's messy environmentally, too. I believe the pipeline and associated structures are well-insulated, as much to protect the permafrost as to keep the oil flowing.
It might actually make more sense to do this in Valdez, at the southern terminus -- it's a lot more accessible, it's still fairly cold most of the year, and the ocean is available as a heat sink all year round (the ocean up there is pretty cold at all times).
You're really not that far off -- the normal mean in Fairbanks in July is in fact 63, but again that's a) mean, and b) normal. It could be considerably higher during a warm summer, and even in a normal summer there could be days or weeks of very much warmer weather. The record high there is 99; the record high for Alaska is 100 at Ft. Yukon, which is above the arctic circle.
Like I said in another post, Valdez would make a better site, anyway, if someone wanted to do this. Even there (or anywhere), there's the whole issue of single point of failure, which is bad juju however you look at it.
You have to think about earthquakes and volcanos: Alaska is not very friendly about that. Winter storms aren't precisely friendly.
Whoever has this plan, also has a very romantic idea of Alaska.
I think there are better places in North Russia, Norway, or Canada.
Hey if they need a SysAdmin with Linux experience I'll take the job. My perfect fantasy job is be isolated from everyone in the middle of nowhere keeping computers up and running. Ever since John Carpenter's The Thing I always thought it'd be kewl working that gig. No bosses to worry about, no people to worry about, just keep the computers from crashing and everyone will be a-ok!!!
Considering with the Net I get all the luxuries UPS to me. If anyone has any leads let me know!!
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
Indeed Lord Ender, I've been running this same argument for years. As a philosophy major, I have honed my acceptable definition of the word 'nature' to the following:
Probable reasons for continued use of the poor colloquial definition: Locke's state of nature hypothesis. biblical notion of a pre-Fall more natural, i.e., better, state. the historical etymology from the Latin for born suggesting that what is there at the conception [of a thing, e.g., the earth] is what is natural, i.e., better, than what is unnatural [or artificial], i.e., worse.
Street Creds - Yeah yeah, this sure looks like a poststructuralist account. Sorry about that, but a deconstruction, a genealogy, is occasionally useful, especially when dealing with such an obvious case of origin (see Derrida). That said, I am all about the precise usage of this word and generally prefer a different warm and fuzzy term for our simpler terran coinhabitants and the sorts of environment and ecology they each require for survival.
-l
n.b.- I have intentionally avoided any argument for or against protection of environments relatively devoid of artificial structures.
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Things like thousands of miles of data cables. Never mind that you might want to hook up not just to North America, but also to Asia and Europe. Enviromental factors in terms of the cold effect on equipment. Effects from Solar Storms (northern lights, etc)
Eh...ditch the thousands of miles of data cables and use a sattelite uplink. Encrypted, of course. The auroras might give some problems with this though - I'm no expert in that field, but it would seem to me that they might have some effect. Perhaps a way to utilize the periodic auroras could be found (ok, now I'm just getting silly and speculating)
Now that I'm thinking about it, why not start junking the old obsolete sattelites up there and replacing 'em with sattelite-based data storage...oh...wait...NASA's too busy watching coffee grow...dang.
Hrmm..problem is the infrastructure is expensive and involves burying the cables, which is extremely poor for the environment, etc...etc...etc...
;P
Wireless seemed like a good idea, but if what you say is true, traditional sattelite methods wouldn't work too well.
Sounds like we need something new to be able to do this well. Grr... And Alaska seemed so perfect a location for this type of thing. Maybe a giant spike at the rotational North Pole...nah
The idea of orbital datahavens still sounds good to me though - too bad it'll never happen.
I wouldn't mind the gig, but I think I'd freeze my nuts off. Hard to imagine the good aspects to watching a bunch of servers in a place where the main hobbies are alcoholism and insomnia.
Wait a minute. That sounds like my current gig! Where do I sign up?
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
>Remember, it's the cost per megawatt that counts and solar isn't cost competative yet even if you could run a data center on only solar.
Solar is very cost competative, especially when you factor in things that aren't explictly in the price of fossil fuels: cost of clean-up, quality of life, and the cost of maintaining a dependence on foreign oil. Protecting interests in foreign oil is very, very expensive.
The U.S could have spent far less simply by investing in renewables.
I think this plan is silly. Everyone knows there are no penguins in the northern hemisphere, no matter how cold it may be. Here's my proposed solution:
Buy hundreds of laptops and fit them with wireless LAN cards. Remove the standard casing and put the insides into a penguin-shaped case. Put wheels powered by an electric on the bottom of each penguin and let them loose at the South Pole. You now have highly redundant, mobile, distributed data storage. If you can't visualize what I mean, watch a few episodes of the Batman TV series, I'm sure at least one must feature motorized penguins running amok.
The only question is what OS to run on these servers.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
"a fat pipe"
^
Hurm, no thanks.
http://windows.scares.us
Natural does not necessarily equal good, and while humans are natural, so is the black plague. For the most part, humans have played to their very lowest and most 'natural' instincts in short-sightedly laying waste to much of the earth.
Nature is always changing, animals are always evolving and becoming extinct.
That's a superficially sound observation, but it is also fundamentally utter bullshit. Humans operate in a timeframe far, far faster than natural selection, and no multicellular organism can evolve fast enough to survive the changes we are creating. Only organisms naturally well-adapted to humans -- things like rats, cockroaches, and various molds and mildews -- are benefiting from our presence. And only unicellular organisms are actually evolving fast enough to keep up with us, but these are mainly the drug-resistant pathogens that will probably wipe us out for our failure to regulate our own population.
Recognizing that man is part of nature is not the same as recognizing man's place in nature. But that requires appealing to faculties that operate in higher parts of the brain than the R-complex.
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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
No need to go that far out of town.
Soil maintains a constant temperature. Several thousand feet of it give an enormous thermal mass.
Put server farms in played-out salt mines (they're already being used for document storage.) The holes, really BIG holes, are already there.
Its dry, secure as Hell (you'd literally have to tunnel through thousand foot thick firewalls,) and you can put a power generating station near the opening.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The slope is already fully armed with sysadmin, tech support staff and everything else needed to survive for the oil company purposes. It wouldn't take much to lure more techies up there especially for a hosting company of some sort.
Most permanent employees on the slope (aka north slope) work on shifts. Commonly a shift such as two weeks on, two weeks off. The average workday is officially 12 hours for most people but depending on your job/company/etc. it can be anywhere from 12-16. And yes, no weekends while you are up, you work 7 days a week.
The advantages of this system? Unless you are a smoker you don't have to spend a single dime while you are up north (at oil fields alcohol is banned). At least working for the oil companies they supply everything from food/soda/snacks to living facilities and exercise areas. Then when you come home you are off... no office, no nothing. you can sleep all day and stay up all night and travel at any point as long as you are back at the airport to catch the plane to head back up for work (oh ya, the planes are normally company covered too). For someone who is a roamer or likes having large chunks of time off this is great. 6 months a year off of work and with many companies you continue to accrue normal vacation time too which is an extra bonus.
Many like the wages, depending on the company its just like any other job, good, bad or otherwise but the thing that really pumps people up is the overtime since its 4 hours a day guaranteed and you are working 7 days a week so there is even more in there.
Anyway, its not that bad. For me I like sleeping in my own bed but my experiences with the slope as a whole have been good. Lots of rules to follow (usually with good reason) but its a pretty nifty way to live for many people.
With what I just said - its not a problem to lure people to the slope. Pay them well, tell them they will get all the soda and snack food you can stuff in their faces and that they will have 6 months off a year and they will come. Oh yes, they will come.
-Alan
There's a convenience store in northern Minnesota, that's supposedly heated and cooled almost entirely by a large supply of ground water which is cycled through a heat exchanger.
I'm not sure how much supplemental heat they have to use in the winter (-30F is not uncommon), but they're apparently able to run the coolers and the building A/C exclusively off of the ground water.
Now if you could just steal enough electricity from the phone lines, you could run the heat pumps for free..
Having lived in Alaska for 3 years, I can tell you, it is going to cost big bucks. I have been waiting patiently for this to happen, though... the location is ideal.
On the upside, there was a wealth of good tech talent up there that can be had relatively cheaply. Hell, I would go back up there for a while to help with that. (Still have family up there anyway)... where can I send my resume? 8^)
Jethro
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
So what are they going to do if there is a major pipeline break that puts the pipeline out of service for an extended period?
Remember, it's the cost per megawatt that counts and solar isn't cost competative yet even if you could run a data center on only solar.
I beg to differ. The price of solar energy has been lower than the price of fossil fuels for a couple of years now.
And what's more... if you live or do business in California the state will share the cost of installation.
http://www.AltEStore.com/cart/
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Presently, there are negotiations underway to run a full blown LNG pipeline down either the Alaska Highway or through the Mackenzie Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories from the North Slope to the lower 48. Like any project of this scale, there are many legal and environmental issues that have to be resolved before this happens.
Incidentally, a data center of this size would require more bandwidth than the entire state of Alaska has running into it.
Who's going to mount an Arctic expedition just to hit Ctl-Alt-Del every time NT crashes? Talk about your Blue screens...
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
I guess the current job, er, climate makes this the best time in the last decade to float such a scheme though.
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Poliglut
The one thing Bush got right was that the problem right now is that there is more demand than supply. He says that means we must explore more and relax environmental standards so we can build up our production capabilities. You say conservation is the way to go.
I say, you're both wrong.
We need to do both of what you guys say, but neither will solve the problem.
The problem was demand exceeding supply. That situation did not come about because we didn't have enought conservation, nor becuase of environmental concerns. The problem came about because energy was so cheap in the early 90's that there was no money in building power plants. There are many now under way (see this story on Poliglut for a graph of the last twenty years), but the reason demand exceeded supply was because there was no money in building new plants for a while and that even now that there is, it takes a while to build them.
P.S. None of this should be taken as an argument against conservation, just that it's a fools paradise to believe it would have helped CA this time.
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Poliglut
Huh? Anchorage (one of the warmer parts of Alaska), for example, only averages above 65 for nine days in the heat of July, after that it's all downhill.
On the North Slope things are much colder. That same July peak only has them at 46.
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Poliglut
a. Don't build them in hot climates.
This is the only legit part of the post. Of course, if the cost of energy is less than the cost of labor (remember that a lot of the labor is in hot climates!) then hot climates still make a lost of sense. Labor is your largest cost after all.
b. If you do build them in hot climates you should have to build a large solar panel array on the top of the facility.
That's great as a throw away comment. That solar array isn't going to give you nearly the power you need, nor produce it efficiently. Remember, it's the cost per megawatt that counts and solar isn't cost competative yet even if you could run a data center on only solar.
c. When it's cold outside, open the windows. Nothing is dumber than having the air conditioning on in the winter! If dust bothers you, suck in outside air and filter it.
Think climate control, not air conditioning. The moisture is important too. Opening windows (except in a desert and you already said we can't build there) will corrode all your systems. In the colder days you talk about the air conditioners are very efficient in terms of heat transfer and act mostly as humidity control.
d. In hot climates build them underground. Once you get a few feet down the earth's crust is actually pretty cool. Extend large heat sinks into the surrounding terrain to use the earth's natural cooling.
Once again you have a decent idea for homes, but it doesn't scale to the energy requirements of a data center.
e. the source of the problem is the heat generated by equipment, why not design coller equipment instead? This is possible, there just is a lack of motivation to do it
They have. One P4 throwing off 50 watts, but running 200 web servers is a lot more efficient thatn 200 486's.
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Poliglut
In order to keep your feng shui aligned properly, you SHOULD be concerned about views and climate.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Get over it. Alaska is not your personal nature preserve. Too many tree huggers in the lower 48, make that the urban areas of the lower 48, think that every piece of federal land should be turned into a national park. Screw the people who actually live there. They should be content with being allowed to contemplate the natural splendor of the wilderness. So what if they don't have self determination, jobs or a functioning local economy. All miners and lumberjacks are environmental rapists.
An orgy room? Oh yeah, that's exactly what *I* want to see in such a facility.
"Oh My God! Who shaved the fucking walruses?"
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Sure it is well-cooled and isolated. But who exactly is going to sys admin a site on the North Slope? How much will you have to pay to have a nerd give up his life to administer that site? Think about it: no women, no electronics superstore, no Borders, no cops, no boss on site, unfettered access to pr0n, nobody watching,... wait a minute, maybe it won't be that hard to find someone after all...
j
Opinions change daily as new information arrives. Stay tuned.
I wonder what the ping times to alaska would be?
Yes, there is some impact, thats why i said, no real impact rather then no impact at all. Truth is, the north slope is not what most ppl think. Durring the winter months it's basicly a wasteland. While there are a few heards of several thousand moose/caribou and arctic fox in the area, over the years they have learned to stear clear of the buildings and traffic really isn't a problem.
The handful of roads and trucks that do exist there are built for the pipeline security and maintainace folks, this has been in place for years and no offence, but it's damn hard to miss a 7 foot moose with a 6 foot acrossed rack in a giant field of white. For the 14 years my relative worked up there, there was only 1 moose fatiality due to a truck and thats cause the moose rammed it while it was parked.
This new facility in the short term will have some effect yes, due to noise of construction ect. Once the facility is built things will return to normal (if it can be called that). As for high voltage systems, guess they will have to use those fences or do what most of the buildings there do, keep them on the inside and underground. Same for the cooling systems.
Most people don't know that almost everything ever done on the north slope had to go through tremendous amounts regulations as to have as little of an effect on the wild life as possible. So there was much moved into areas that just can't be accessed by animals. It's not perfect, but it's one of the best jobs that humans could do aside from not building anything there at all.
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
There really wont be any impact on the animal life in the area if this site goes up. I have a relative that worked on the North Slope for many years in the employ of the oil corp. While he was there he filmed the wild life and the effect that the oil facilitied had on them as well as human presence.
Many were shocked to find that after the construction was finished the wildlife moved right back in and hardly payed the large pipes any attention. While they will keep their distance from humans they seem to care less about all the steel and concreat.
As for who would stay up there and for how long, my relatives shift was 3 weeks up at the slope and 2 weeks at home and the company flew him there and back. He always seemed to like the schedule as he felt like he was always getting a 2 week vacation.
The only real problems I can see with something liek this is hardware breakage and replacement. If something goes down and there isn't a replacement on site, it could take a few days pending on a few factors.
1. Availability of a replacement
2. Shipping time to a staging point (Usualy Ancorage)
3. Flight time (weather is a massive factor here as the cross to the slope is well into the arctice circle and the plane must cross the Brooks Range)
Other then those areas, the only other thing I could suggest is that there be 3-4 ppl on site all the time since human interaction is a must even for the most anti-social person in a place like that where going outside could mean facing -70+ temps and everyting is all white for most of the year.
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
this sounds exactly like my job now except for the trip to Mars bit.
Just throw engine-block heaters on the suckers, for starting up only.
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
There is more than enough cold wind swept barren earth in Wyoming for all the Teraflops anyone needs. Additionally, there is plenty of natural gas, coal, oil and...did I mention the wind?
Also, if you buy 3 cows and graze them on your cluster farm, the state will lease you a few thousand acres for a little over a dollar - and then subsidize your water costs, which you could use for cooling purposes prior to hosing down the 3 cows (in the summer time, that is. In the winter cooling will be free, but you may need to buy a bit of hay for the cows...)
At night, the SysAdmins (probably imported from Colorado) can sneak out and Tip The Cows Over [patent pending].
I've been to the North Slope, I've been to Wyoming, and I think the choice is clear.
"Preservation of nature"??!! Render unto me a ****ing break!
A datacenter isn't even on the same order of magnitude as other, probably more vital, things we're doing in Alaska. On the grand scale of things, it's hardly even a blip. Only the most rabid, anti-development environmentalist would even consider the idea that it might be a problem. $DEITY save us from rabid environmentalists.
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Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
If you have ever been there, or taken a decent look at tit on the map you'd know that it's so goddamn big you could probably put that datacenter there and noone would eever notice. If you didn't make it a huge skyscraper (which you wouldn't do in the arctic anyway) or make it too offcial looking and shit noone would even care. They just want thier dividend to increase (thats the check they get from the state goverment ever year. It's thier cut of the oil revenue generated for the state of AK, and no they don't pay any state tax.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
What kind of hazard-duty pay for the admins?
Tundra wolves chewing on the fiber optic line.
It may be that this is already quite widespread, but that's not the case from my experience in the field (== substantial). Let's stop to think about this for a second.
"Going down, instead of out" preserves land space and offers several additional benefits:
Relatively constant temperature.
Um, there is the phenomenon called "permafrost" which exists throughout the area. Assuming your post refers to the proposed server farm, the heat would melt this into a pudding-like mud.
Heightened protection from the elements (earthqakes included to a certain degree, since your buidling won't "fall over."
Yes, it would. Not quickly, but inevitably, see above.
Maybe somewhat increased physical security (depends).
This is true, since potential attackers would have a hard time finding the building once the mud had closed over the top of it.
Wouldn't this be more of a target out in the wild? Think about it, if your a company who's going to (fall for this `plan') wouldn't you think someone would have an easier time breaking into some place where they probably have about > 25 law enforcement agents, most of whom are likely not trained properly (not to troll, but think about some high tech espionage case) what are they gonna do call for Gentle Ben or something?
Might sound like a cool idea but I think it has issues. Sweden, Norway, and parts of Finland (their nothern parts) have equally cool places full of the resources too, maybe the EU should jump at the idea. Maybe not, when the crap hits the fan who are you going to turn to an Eskimo who only knows fishing and shit?
They should set up a colo space in meat market like environments filled with freon cooled rack spaces powered by potatoes is what I think somewhere in Idaho
Want Root?
Oh that's easy just use Intel P4 processors ;)
and insulate the room a bit.
Alaskan summers are nice and warm with mean temp of 75 degrees. And of course 24 hours of daylight. So this facillity will have to have air as well as heat. Plus, if something goes wrong during a storm, the admin had better live in the building.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I repeat, stronger than last time. No.
Alaska is one of the last few true wildernesses in the United States. There is enough of an ecological threat to the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) from oil drilling, that tech-heads, imbuing urbanesque idealized idiocy need not contribute to the generalized threat to Alaska. Consider the ramifications of your actions to a fragile eco-system. Yes, cool weather is ideal for storage, but think about the infrastructure necessary to support such a data warehouse. Think about the land, think about the number of people which would be needed to maintain both the data warehouse and the line between there and the rest of the world.
Yes, there is significant less ecological damage which a data warehouse specifically puts out than an oil drill, but you are still making an impact on the environment. Don't think in terms of local economic boosts, but think in terms of world environmental responsobility. We've already ruined a good portion of the lower 48 with overly congested highways, air pollution, and our ideals. Most of us have already entered into volounteer slavery to the allmighty dollar. Don't foist these mistakes on one of the last true paradises based on economic greed for both the corporations and the tech-centric living in the lower 48 (and elsewhere).
Backpackers, environmentalists, and nature lovers in general have generally adopted a leave no trace philosophy, bent on maintainig the natural beauty of the land. Thousands of people spend many hours volounteering each year to repair simple hiking trails, which are well overgrown with people. Forget what sounds cool. Consider the consequences. We have as much a responsibility to maintaining the environment as we try to convice Brazil they do, when they slash and burn portions of the amazon. Alaska is one of the last few places in the US which is truly wild. Its not like we're taking an existing structure and refurbishing or rebuilding it, this requires entirely new construction on a massive scale. The pipeline already has caused major migration shifts for caribou and other animals. This is NOT like dropping in an alaskan office for IBM.
Just because the dotcom-mega-spend plan fell through, don't start taking your business plan from big oil or timber. Make an effort to remain concious of the impact you truly make.
Note: I'm an east-coast lower 48er.
You say you want a revolution?
Good lord, I'll say you're a east-coast lower 48er. I'll also say you are an ass, to quote from Shakespeare.
:)
:) I lived in AK for 25 years, and we Alaskans are quite proud of that statement. Of course, now I live in Texas... but it's the truth and I can't deny it.
/. crowd, and "bitch" at best. The problemn is, this is NOT needed. This is NOT a necessity, which at least arguably the ANWR drilling project can be viewed as. (I agree with the expansion, I just vote for Wyoming instead of Alaska). This is a corporate whim, from an impearialistic corporation and nothing more.
Northern as well... so don't forget the inclusion of "pomous" in your description as well.
The whole "preserve the wildlife refuge" is such a piece of !@#@#!!! Do you even realize HOW big Alaska is? It's not a little bitty speck off of California, dude. It is gargantuan! You could cut it in half and make Texas the third largest state instead of second.
While I have been to Alaska, I'll freely admit that I can't fathom how big Alaska actually is. I spent a week there and didn't even cover a significant amount of one park let alone the entire state. I could spend my entire life there (hint hint) and I don't think that I would. But if you think that size is all that matters in terms of ecological risk then, you are wrong. There is so much more. Following your arguement in reverse, take all the land in the US, lump it together, and compare the park/protected land vs. the rest. It is a miniscule ammount, and Alaska contributes far more than the rest. But lets ignore that for right now...
Did you know that the amount of State and Federal parklands and refuges already exceeds the a good deal of your east coast? I don't remember the exact figures but it is million of millions of acres of land-- already set aside. You can't even ride a bicycle through Denali National Park without a super-special impossible to obtain permit. A BICYCLE?! GIMME A BREAK! That is ridiculous.
We are not talking about devistation on a percentage of the whole here, we are talking about devistation as a single event. If you inflict any ecological damage within a small portino of alaska, the ecological damage, is still severe to that area because it can't handle the growth, regardless of how much land you don't hurt. This isn't about minimizing an average ecological damage, this is about minimizing direct ecological damage. With the case of Denali (beautiful park), this is the exact problem. Any damage done to the area is still damage, and the question of what is a reasonable expectation for the land to cope. There are limits to
Geez louise, I like hiking and having natural areas just like the next person. But you really need to charter a flight and try to see all of the natural area of Alaska before start spouting off something you don't understand.
I've chartered the plane. It was awe inspiring. But you stated one of the big problems, you like hiking and having natual areas just like the next person. The question is, what are you willing to do to protect them, and insure their survival? Probably the same as the rest of the
So go blow off, you East-coaster. Go pick hypodermic needles off your shore and hike your little bitty Apalachians and leave regional politics to those who know their region.
And I'll continue hike the Candian Rockies, the Sierras, out through Yellowstone, through the Tetons, Denali, the obligatory Apalachians, and so on. Every single park I hit, I garountee I try to make some difference. I have a vested interest in both outdoor recreation throughout the US, including in Alaska. I also have a vested intrest in maintaining an awareness of what the heck is going on up there. I just wish you did too. If you've never seen what rapid corporate expansion does to a natural habitat, its a not a pretty sight. You won't see it in TX, as they've pretty much already succumbed to the allmighty dollar. A rapid insurgence of technology into an area usually comes at a massive ecological cost. It won't be different this time.
Oh, and maybe I'll organize a beach cleaning in your name for next month.
You say you want a revolution?
Hey look, as long as you have a permit, hunt to your hearts content. Even trophy hunting has its place, though I think it is some what of a waste. Population control, especially in Alaska, is important to the ecosystem. Otherwise the animals overpopulate, kill the ground, then half of them starve to death and the cycle has to repeat itself at a loss. Usually there is some disease in there as well...
Its probably good you can't finish the caribou in one sitting, otherwise you'd never get to experience caribou jerky, or freeze it, thaw it and grind it into caribou chili (not as good as moose chili though).
As I said, I'm environmentally concious. I did not say I'm a (...ponder what I used to taunt my ex as...) a tree-hugging, whale-kissing earth-muffin with a big bowl of granola on the side.
You say you want a revolution?
Is this really a media hack to tweak people about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Buch League's plans to drill it for oil and cut down all the trees to make government paperwork?
You'd have much better luck putting a hosting center on one of the First Nations reservations outside of Victoria BC. Some of them don't have treaties with the Canadian government, so there're interesting possibilities for using their sovereignty rights and tax status, and they're English-speaking and near the networks.
For that matter, you'd have much better luck putting a hosting center on some or a slightly-used nuclear missile bunker in the UK.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Live near the facility?
Live in the facility. Seems logical.
My point with the solar panels is that you should use every available resource to reduce your load on the power grid. Using solar power will:
a. generate some electricity, not nearly enough, but enough solar panels around will help the situation a lot.
b. Reduce the amount solar energy heating the building or getting reflected back into the atmosphere by converting that photonic energy into electricity. We should be mass-producing solar panels and putting them on top of all building in sunny areas.
It isn't a lack of technology but a lack of regulation that's the problem. Nobody wants to make more efficient equipment of facilities because it's going to hit them in the pocketbook. So why not be smarter about it?
Instead of building a co-lo facility where you couldn't find any skilled labor to run it, why not build one near a source of cool water instead. Then you could exchange the heat into a moving current of a large body of water. The heat you add would be negligible to the environment, and you'd save money. It could also be built near a source of skilled labor. Nuclear power plants already do this.
Some more ideas on better co-lo facilities:
a. Don't build them in hot climates.
b. If you do build them in hot climates you should have to build a large solar panel array on the top of the facility.
c. When it's cold outside, open the windows. Nothing is dumber than having the air conditioning on in the winter! If dust bothers you, suck in outside air and filter it.
d. In hot climates build them underground. Once you get a few feet down the earth's crust is actually pretty cool. Extend large heat sinks into the surrounding terrain to use the earth's natural cooling.
e. the source of the problem is the heat generated by equipment, why not design coller equipment instead? This is possible, there just is a lack of motivation to do it
You can't do anything underground anywhere north of about the 60th degree line. This is because of permafrost. Permafrost is a layer of frozen ground anywhere from a meter or two to hundreds of meters deep. Permafrost is permanently frozen, even on the days when the ambient air temperature at ground level is well above 40 degrees C (72 degrees F).
Permafrost is totally unworkable. This is why the Alaska Pipeline is raised for well over half of its length. They would have buried it if they could, it would have been much cheaper and would have posed less risk for disaster. But the existence of permafrost made this completely impossible.
I have personally seen bulldozers whose blades are bent and twisted from trying to dig down a foot or two into the frozen ground.
The other nasty problem with permafrost, aside from it being unworkable, is that if you do manage to bury something within it the heat differential between the ground and the buried object is great enough at times to cause melting. Melted permafrost causes heaves and sinkholes to form as the thawing ground expands and contracts under thermal pressure. The ingenious solution that the pipeline engineers had for this problem (since even a raised pipeline needs buried supports) was to fill the support pylons with ammonia and put radiator fins at the tops of the pylons up in the air. The ammonia circulates from the bottom of the pylons where it heats up, then through convection raises to the radiator fins where it cools and then convects downward. This prevents the permafrost from melting.
It is absolutely impossible to bury anything in the Arctic. Everything that is buried is either destroyed from the melting and refreezing process, or the ground itself can't be dug without high explosives.
As for local geothermal energy, most of the Arctic is a barren treeless plain of nothing but wet, swampy muskeg and mosquitoes, with almost no major geological activity. There are thermokarsts, pingoes, and sinkholes caused by the freeze/thaw cycle, the occasional earthquake from shifting tectonic plates, and the slow but steady upthrust of the Arctic mountain ranges. Little in the way of exploitable energy sources, except for the obvious petrochemicals.
Also, buried buildings stand a much *higher* risk from earthquakes in some areas, particularly because the surrounding earth has a tendency to collapse in on itself due to relatively low-density soil. Burying in bedrock alleviates this, of course, but increases the development expense dramatically.
As far as actually building a networked computer processing center on the Arctic Slope, the whole idea is ridiculous. There isn't enough bandwidth as it is (the whole state has perpetually suffered from connectivity shortages and transient outages since its inception), the cost of moving people into the location is not economically feasible (the only reason the Oil companies have people up there is because they have to, not because it's cheap), the projected average cost of development in that region is higher than the projected average cost of development on the Moon (the Oil companies often joke about this, that they'd rather drill for oil on the moon because it'd be cheaper with less environmental constraints), and the permitting process for development in the region can take decades.
Obviously this announcement was just a marketing ploy to make this company's stock price increase. There can't be any content involved here. Particularly because the story only made the Anchorage Daily News, not a real newspaper. It sounds to me like the article was bought and paid for, which is typical for the Daily News (who is often a mouthpiece for the local government and development companies).
Let's just go back to the ANWR debate. At least that one has some realism to it. This is just Silicon Valley hucksters selling vaporous hype.
(If you're wondering, I'm a lifelong Alaskan. I've seen this BS over and over. This is just like the Point Mackensie Tidal Power Plant Bridge, the Copper River Highway and the Million Dollar Bridge, the Wrangell Highway, the Nome to Siberia Tunnel, and the Delta Barley Project. Another giant project envisioned on a whim from someone with too much money, doomed to failure.)
This is idiotic. The article states that there will be at least 1/2 million servers in the data center. Even if they had a farm of OS/390 machines, they would still need a large quantity of SysAdmins... Any benefit gained by this location (availability of natural gas, cold) would be immediately lost in paying experienced sysadmins hugh amounts to live near the facility.
If they need lots of gas, why not locate near a gas pipeline, and for cooling, near a river or other large body of water? Nuclear power plants use rivers/lakes/ocean for cooling, why not data centers?
Never mind the fact that there seems to be only one (!!) fiber optic cable connecting them to the internet.... Let's talk about the cost of laying another cable going through another location.
Sounds like a stupid idea thought up by some marketing idiots.
-- CKM
internet systems architect - scalability - commerce
-- I don't have a cool sig.
One thing the company poses as a good thing is that it brings about 250 jobs with it. My guess is that they won't be hiring a lot of locals for the positions, though. They'll probably be flying in the best and brightest(who for some reason want to live in Alaska) from every other state.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's interesting to note. Those positions will probably pay pretty well, too.
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Unless the problem is constipation and the magic fairy is Metamucel.
Guvegrra?
I thought the days of insane dot-com concepts were over.
Silly me.
Alaska United has put in an OC-192 to complement the 9*DS-3 North Pacific Cable. Alaska really is the end of the road, though, traffic to the pacific rim still has to head down to the lower 48. The Arctic Region Supercomputing Center in Fairbanks has an OC-12 internet2 link to the pacific northwest gigapop to support research and defense work. Bandwidth is there, but does it make sense to have major data centers at the end of the road?
(...missing my woodstove heated cabin with a DSL line but no running water, in fairbanks)
somebody bent my whookey.
Have to admit, it was weird seeing a FedEx truck above the Arctic Circle.
Needless to say, the UPS guys don't wear brown shorts.
Buildings that have to be on the ground, eg. Airplane Hangars, Firestations, have thermal siphons that are like radiators for the ground.
They keep the ground frozen with metal fins and ammonia.
I have a fan running in my room and office because it's *over* insulated.
Email me if you want a picture, i'll send you JPG.
Find the northmost point on that map, and the go down the coast about halfway to the border. Thats Prudhoe Bay and that's where they want to build this lunacy. It will never happen though, is not enough bandwidth out of the state and almost NO bandwidth from the population centers upto the slope.
Solid-state components prob'ly don't mind subzero temps, but the drives sure will. To pick one example, this Maxtor SCSI drive is only rated to run above 5C. Heck, NON-operating temperature is only -40C.
--
Wait... who's the idiot?
--
As long as you stay happily with your computer, you're warm and safe. This should be a natural geek advantage where real estate is concerned: who needs to pay a premium for views or climate?
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I am skeptical about the purpose of doing this. Granted it is isolated, but if you can get people and equipment there, it is not isolated enough to discourage anyone who really wanted to get there. Isolation has its disadvantages as well, the police/fire/rescue people would have as much difficulty getting there as anyone and not to mention replacement parts. Since there is only one pipeline, it is easy to cut. Alaska is still inside the United States and is therefore still subject to U.S. law and Alaska State law. I really see no advantage to building there as opposed to some other less isolated area such as Montana where there might be a road and a small town nearby. Heck I hear Area 51 is vacant now.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
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I'm afraid they are. Sorry. Do the math: (-40 - 32)*5/9 = -40
Maybe instead of a server they'd be better off building a super huge beowulf cluster to crank through data. That generates lots of heat and eats up lots of power, two problems the cluster wouldn't face in Alaska. You'd only need bandwidth to feed the cluster new problems to do and to receive results. That shouldn't be a problem with the existing bandwidth.
Humans are natural. Just because we make more noticeable changes to our environment than other animals doesn't mean we aren't nature. If a beaver dams a river it is nature, but if people do it, it is polution? There is no one perfect state nature can be in. We are not ruing a 'balance'. Nature is always changing, animals are always evolving and becoming extinct. There is no 'nature' to 'preserve' and we humans are natural, too.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
That is an issue. Jeez, last I checked there were sysadmin jobs going unfilled for months (years?) in northern AK. Doesn't matter how much they're paying, you've got to like a whole lot of nothing to work in a place like that when there are ANY other options available.
Never mind the cold and the dark, though...I hear the people can be even harder to deal with.
I'm not for or against this project but I thought I'd add clarity to some of the mis-information that has been given.
1. There is fiber bandwidth the Prudhoe Bay.
2. There is bandwidth to the lower 48. Each OC-48 can be upgraded to an OC-192. Read the page for more details.
I can't answer for other company's redundancy but GCI uses a satilite system if for any reason the fiber goes down. It does cause some hellacious lag but the packets still get there.
3. There are no penguins
4. There are polar bears
5. There are some really huge mosquitoes.
6. No we don't live in igloos and yes, we have indoor plumbing......some of us.....
Is what happens when the North Slope oil runs out -- as it will eventually. Fossil fuels are by definition a non-renewable resource.
Then they'll be stuck with the problem of energy supply. It'll be like building a server farm on the surface of the moon -- everything has to be transported great distances at enormous expense.
Such a beast would be conveniently close to ye olde Siberian missile silos. Hrm.
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NO TOUCH MONKEY!
Maybe someone could explian how they intend to get gas ( natural or otherwise ) out of the pipeline? Assuming they can build anywhere near it.... If memory serves ( probably doesnt ) Alaska has no refineries. And when you do have refined material traveling through a pipeline it is done in semi regular intervals switching between different types of fuel seprated by scouring devices. But it seems in this case *thinking back to third grade* she is shiped in the crude or close to it. Thats a far cry from natural gas. I could easily be wrong but thats just what I remember of it.
The second problem is that the cable that was just put in a couple years ago (I asume thats the one they are talking about being the ONLY one) would never support 1/2 a million servers + the customers it was put in for without retooling. That would mean picking up the cable and replacing the repeaters and the like.
The third problem with this silly article:
Anyone who has spent much time in Alaska will probably agree with the fact that NOTHING is reliable in Alaska. At least it wasnt in the twenty some odd years I spent there. Have things changed? Do they intend to change them? Can they make my vehicle start in the morning during the winter months so I can go the three miles to work?
Well, three things are for sure. It will not be less expensive to build. It will not be less expensive to operate. It will not be more reliable. So what are they trying to prove again?
I have to doubt the legitimacy of the article at this point, or maybe the legitimacy of the company promoting the idea.
-- Ideas are not true or false, just good or bad ---
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
The article mentions "the existing fiber-optic line from the North Slope". Well, I'm a native New York living in London for the past four years, and frequently have experienced problems getting to North American internet sites.
And this wasn't related solely to my provider (Demon), as I also use Virgin and Freenet. When Demon can't reach Noth American, frequently they can't either.
It was out for an entire weekend about nine months ago.
Just seems problematic to me if they've only got a single pipe - no matter how thick - to the Lower 48.
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I would consider working for the company if I could be assured that I would get the standard 2 week on/2 week off slope schedule. The commute is a pain, though.
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This all just seems like a gimmick to me. I don't think this place really has that much advantage over a data center in a suburban industrial area. There's data and power there too. However, personnel costs are going to be much higher up there. Remote administration can help, but it can't setup new servers, or run cable. How many experienced administrators want to live up there in the freezing cold/middle of nowhere. Also, construction costs would be increased too! Plus, getting computers shipped there will be more expensive.
It just doesn't add up to me.. I mean lately we've seen "lets build a data center on an island", and now "lets build a data center up in glacial cold of Alaska", what's next; "let's build a data center in the middle of the jungle (anyone who can get through all the vines would be good at cabling), or maybe "let's build a data center at the bottom of the ocean (everthing water cooled!, plus there's fat data lines, and power running down there too!"
Things like thousands of miles of data cables. Never mind that you might want to hook up not just to North America, but also to Asia and Europe. Enviromental factors in terms of the cold effect on equipment. Effects from Solar Storms (northern lights, etc)
I am not completely sold on this. Maybe something closer to the Bering Straights.
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"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Having lived up here in Alaska since '96, *and* having worked for one of the major telecoms up here that own some of the fiber going down to the lower 48, all I can say is WTF? This is the most near-sighted view of the project to date. These nitwits are focusing on temperature, power, and security, forgetting that all the while that if people can't get to your service, they're not going to use it. No, I'm not talking about physically, but do any of you people realise what Alaska's bandwidth situation is? Right now, we have three companies that own fiber that will sell you bandwidth (one, Alaska Fiber Star, can't seem to give you a quote on provisioning to save their life, though--*&)(&*^(*&% sales people!). The remaining companies, ACS & GCI both have sold a good chunk of what they have, but neither of them are sitting on so much bandwidth that they can afford to provide the needs of a datacenter on that scale with any kind of real redundancy. In short, I think this is ill-concieved, and not very well thought out. People will very likely want to move a tremendous amount of data in an out of this facility on a regular basis, and I haven't heard anyone involved in this project consider this critical access issue.
Hogwash. The reality is that even with technologies like DWDM, you still have to have fiber that has sufficient reflective qualities along the walls of the fiber across a broader range of frequency. Yes, most fiber these days are adequate to one extent or another for DWDM, but you can't safely make that assumption when you're budgeting a project of this scale, can you? I thought not.
Futhermore, a cable like GCI's, which lays in the ocean, requires repeaters at given intervals. Each repeater is designed to operate over a specific range of frequencies, so one again, you have no guarantees that they're already prepared to do heavy DWDM. As I recall, when they laid their cable, DWDM was still in the early stages in the industry, and didn't have the acceptance levels they do today.
In short, don't think you can solve all of your problems by whipping some magic fiber-fairy out of your ass. Alaska is *not* the most well connected state on the Internet, and that *has* to be a consideration for any Alaskan-based data center.
As an additional side note, did you know that Alaska wastes an incredible amount of bandwidth to the lower 48 just to view Alaskan web sites? The lack of a peering agreement between the two biggest players, ACS & GCI, forces any subscriber on one to send all of their traffic through Seattle, WA, just to visit a site on the other. It's things like that which should illuminate the somewhat ludicrous bandwidth predicaments we find ourselves in up here.
Effectively one datapipe to the net? That doesn't scale very well, and it sure isn't very fault-tolerant.
:) Sure costs go way up, but so does fault tolerance and scalability.
They'd be much better off if they picked several sites across the world and ran a Raid-Earth system
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Hmm, so we have a major source of power and massive amounts of data all in one location? Terrific target for terrorists. TTFT? =)
Humorless sig goes here.
Being from the UK I wasn't too sure where the North Slope was... well I knew it was in the North (duh!) but I didn't know how big it was or what... so for other non-US citizens...
I solemnly give you...
The North Coast
It's pretty damn big! Where exactly in that wilderness are they thinking of putting this server farm?
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
Igloo melted
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
Quick, someone file an RFC for an IP over oil so we can take advantage of a new protocol...
Second, let's patent the IP over oil so someone else doesn't.
wait unil they get to Alaska, which has just about the highest male to female ratio in the states, outside of Paris Island.
Though, for a female SA who wants to be the center of attraction at a sausage fest, it might not be a bad gig.
You have to stay in this underground bunker, stuffed full of servers and UPS, and you have to live on hot pockets and instant coffee. You can't go outside, since there's only frozen tundra there.
But, you get full internet connectivity, and you can be put on the waiting list for a trip to Mars.
oh, wait, they've got penguins down there... :-P
the carnation in my buttonhole / precedes me like a small / continuous explosion. -RS
I love caribou, but I've never been able to finish a whole one at one sitting.
Believe me, there is plenty of already less-than-pristine area to but a data center and its attendant folks on, even up on the slope. Too bad the oil company tore down the annex, would have made a good place for the workers building this thing, and the food was better than the BOC.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
I would like to suggest to build a pair of data centers : on in north poal and the other in south. The issue is to utilize the solar power that you can switch from one to the other without providing extra energy. thank god. It is heavenly running, God bless them.
I think I am going to live my life by that axiom.
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--hongpong.com
Power, cooler temps, but probably no bandwidth. I would hate to be the fedex guy dropping off tapes....
I drove up there (From MN) a while back on a cross country motorcycle trip, and I could think of few things less fun then trenching fiber optic cable through that wilderness - environmental issues aside.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Earthquakes.
.. ( http://geohazards.cr.usgs.gov/eq/html/aks.shtml ) .. seems to me this would be a Very Bad Thing.
:)
Gee... what happens when Anchorage gets wiped out by another 9.6 earthquake? I'd bet that OC-12/etc. is running through there.... The entire state of alaska just south of the North Slope is highly seismic
And as for a post above.. "How about the Bering Straits"... how about a data center that gets hit by a tsunami and blown into the ocean in about 3 seconds flat?
No thanks, but I'll keep my servers here in Georgia.. no earthquakes, no power outages (yay nuclear power!).. and hell, gasoline is still only $1.30 gallon here.
... and all I wanted for xmas was a magic 8 ball, but i got this lousy
The whole "preserve the wildlife refuge" is such a piece of !@#@#!!! Do you even realize HOW big Alaska is? It's not a little bitty speck off of California, dude. It is gargantuan! You could cut it in half and make Texas the third largest state instead of second. :) I lived in AK for 25 years, and we Alaskans are quite proud of that statement. Of course, now I live in Texas... but it's the truth and I can't deny it.
Did you know that the amount of State and Federal parklands and refuges already exceeds the a good deal of your east coast? I don't remember the exact figures but it is million of millions of acres of land-- already set aside. You can't even ride a bicycle through Denali National Park without a super-special impossible to obtain permit. A BICYCLE?! GIMME A BREAK! That is ridiculous.
And ANWR.... don't be stupid. The tundra has hardly been effected by the drilling and pumping of oil and the building of the pipeline. That stuff grows like mad and reclaims it's territory so fast. The wildlife don't care about the pipeline. If anything they have been known to use the shadow to cool themselves in the summer.
Geez louise, I like hiking and having natural areas just like the next person. But you really need to charter a flight and try to see all of the natural area of Alaska before start spouting off something you don't understand.
You know why I left Alaska? Jobs. There just weren't enough Sys Admin jobs to go around-- I had to work 50% on NT boxes for two years because I didn't know the right people to do sole unix work. Ugh! So here I am in warm Texas, and I'll be dreaming of those cool Alaska summers all to soon.
I don't think the idea is feasible, but if they want to spend money in Alaska I'll let 'em; those that can stay there sure you could some more. It is not an easy place to live, even in the "metropolis" of Anchorage...
So go blow off, you East-coaster. Go pick hypodermic needles off your shore and hike your little bitty Apalachians and leave regional politics to those who know their region.
"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas"
Sen. Davy Crocket to US Congress, Nov. 1, 1835
Have three or four data centers; land is cheap.
A ground loop would work fine for cooling things during the summer -- though you'd want to be careful to have that loop nice and far from the data center. Wouldn't be a good thing to have it sink in the mud, now, would it?
The numerous disadvantages seem to greatly outweigh the few advantages. It's isolated? So what? How big of a problem are break-in's at the high security server farms in southern california? If its that big of a deal, isolation seems like it would only complicate matters! (serious raid, security people outnumbered, call for backup? riight!) And if their sole internet connection goes down, do they fall back to a satelite or something? It just doesn't seem practical. Is this serious?
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The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Ok, first off, I have lived in Alaska for almost 17 years now. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs about 200 yards from my house. At first, this sounds like a wonderful idea. Now, let's get logical. The "Pipe" to the slope, is not really that big. I personally know people who run this system, it's crazy. Not only is the fiber old, but there isn't that much. And, as I read earlier, one person is right. It goes to Valdez, and STOPS! They use the fiber for "communications", etc. There is no chance that they could accomodate this size of a connection. (half a million servers?). Christ, our local phone company can't tap into the pipe. We have to route our data via COPPER LINES all the way to anchorage, where exists the ONLY fiber connection to the Lower 48. Natural Gas; They have been talking about using this forever. I have never seen anything done. I'm sure BP and the like would love to pawn off this excess gas to this "server farm". Refinery anyone? Ok, how about LAND? God, does anyone know what ANWAR is? The OIL COMPANYS are running out of land. Physical access; there exists only one road to the north slope, and it SUCKS! Basically, whoever is up there, is stuck. You can't just commute home after work. Now, considering all this stuff, I can think of a much better place to locate this farm. ANCHORAGE! think.... everything that you could ever get in alaska, you get from anchorage. they have the power, it's fairly cheap. there is plenty of land. And, they already have an existing backbone connection. Christ people. talk about logisics.
The technology exists to put all the world's traffic through a single fiber -- so wherever fiber exists, more bandwidht is just a matter of upgradeing the electronics at the ends, and that can be done just as soon as someone is wiling to pay for it.
However, I've never seen any large server project so exposed to a single point of failure -- when frost heaves or sabotage break that fiber, it might take a week to get it back online.
This is vapor if I've ever heard it. I don't know where these guys are going to come up with all this "existing bandwidth" that they intend to utilize. I live in AK, and there is not nearly the connectivity to support a project like this. Even assuming that the bandwidth issue is magically taken care of, there are the logistic nightmares involved in building any kind of structure on permafrost, supplying and manning said facility, impact to local communities, impact to wildlife, etc. The list continues... No way is this happening. But for the record (and for all you lower 48'ers reading this), there ARE qualified SysAdmins already living up here, and you'd probably have to pay most of us a helluva lot more to move Outside than to take a 2 on/2 off job on the Slope! (Especially if we could get our hands on all that bandwidth...)
If you insulate it properly you could probably just use the heat from the servers and powerplant to warm it to room temperature. Of course you'll need a backup heater in case everything gets shut down, who knows how being way below freezing would affect things.
Alternatively, you could set the place up to cool the solid state components separately from the drives.
cryptochrome
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
just use regualr beige boxes instead of big black server racks :]
I can still remember my grandmothers amazment that there was electricity and heat in Alaska when we moved. To the outside world Alaska is a cold and barren place. Let them go on thinking this.;)
Cutting edge is sharp, avoid contact.
everyone knows you don't get penguins near the north pole.
I think this one should be filed under "understatement." I live near Lake Powell and not too far from Lake Mead, and it's hard not to try to imagine the beavers that would come close to building the Glen Canyon Damn or Hoover Damn. Maybe it isn't too wild if they would cut down all those big redwoods in California and drag them out here to Utah and Nevada?
Then again, concrete is made out of things we get in nature. Why not just pave everything? That way we wouldn't have to deal with all those pesky rocks and things.
Cooling is going to be the problem, even on the North Slope. It would be smart to run a pipe out into the Arctic ocean and bring in cold seawater for cooling purposes; a secondary glycol loop running to chiller plates in the servers would make for a relatively cheap and reliable cooling system for the summers. For winter, just circulate the glycol through pipes on the roof or dry cooling towers.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Most appreciated! Thank you for an intelligent response. I'm actually in the U.S. Southeast, and the thought of permafrost didn't even cross my mind (duh).
After reading your response, I was at least relieved to note that my piece ended up with a "2: Funny" rating
I'd love to see Alaska someday. Thanks again!
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It may be that this is already quite widespread, but that's not the case from my experience in the field (== substantial). Let's stop to think about this for a second.
"Going down, instead of out" preserves land space and offers several additional benefits:
Of course, this doesn't help the environment out much on the pollution scene, unless of course you happen to utilize local geothermal energy. This frequently has the side effect of putting you at high risk for tremors, however...
Any thoughts?
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Does the spec for IPv6 include a few bits for an "eh?" after every few packets?
A New York Jew who gets Fed loans to complete his college education in computer science at NYIT is forced to work in Alaska...
Lots of servers, huh? That's going to need lots of geeks for maintainance. Think about the human factor: Most datacenters big and small still have: massive tape libraries, whether it be DAT, 3278, or whatever, and many more still have optical disk burning facilities. You will have to bring in a lot of semiskilled labor to change out bad hardware, mount media, and perform routine troubleshooting. Unlike in the oil & gas, fishing and crab industries, these "transplanted Alaskans" probably won't be working in stints like most other wage earners. They will have to make the North Slope their home for most of the year unless someone wants to setup a double or triple payroll and rotate the workforce in and out of the facility. And unlike Austin/Houston/Dallas/San Jose/Seattle, you won't see many of these items readily available that lots of techies subsist on: o Burgers/Pizza/Sushi/Beer o Starbucks o Strip clubs (Delphi programmers) o Cellular access (wonder how good Globalstar is up there?) o Computer hardware stores o Any kind of store in particular and most important of all (since I live in San Antonio): Mexican food In a nutshell, anyone willing to build a facility like this probably will not be able to secure a loan or get any VC because of all the implicit costs bundled in with it. Let's stick to renovating old inner-city downtown buildings to shove in more servers. Surprisingly there are lots of places you might not expect where you can erect a cheap farm close to major fiber lines.. and most of them are in the Southwest US. How about we put some folks in the square states to work?