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Sun to Create Underground Japanese Datacenter
Kurtz'sKompund writes with word of a Sun project in Japan, one that's taking a somewhat non-standard approach to data center construction. To save on power, heating, and water costs, the consortium is going to be building their center in an abandoned coal mine. The outpost will be created by lowering Blackbox systems into the ground; estimates on savings run to $9 million annually in electricity alone.
...does it run Linux?
Sun to Create Japanese Datacenter where the Sun don't shine.
This could be an interesting use of the Earth's tendency to be a thermal sink. Caves are always about 55 F, as I recall. Maybe they can use this to their advantage.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Because you don't have to pump the electrons all the way up to the surface.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
If you dig a hole in the ground, water gets in. You need to pump it out all the time. Most datacenters don't need to worry about floods. The article claims they will be 100m below ground. Where is the water table?
the site's temperature is a constant 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) all year
That is below the recommended temperature for some gear.
The Blackbox containers are robust enough to withstand earthquakes, being capable of withstanding a quake of magnitude 6.7 on the Richter scale.
I'm sure the box will survive an earthquakes, but what about the contents? Most servers don't like to be shaken very hard. You also need to worry about the roof caving in.
According to TFA, $9M could be saved on electricity when using 30'000 server cores. Also according to TFA, 10'000 cores are planned with a $405M budget. If power demand scales directly with the number of cores, this would equate savings of $3M annually. Based only on these savings (which of course won't be the only factor, but since TFS and TFA single them out so clearly), this project breaks even after a measly 135 years or about five and a half times Sun's current age.
The Blackbox containers are robust enough to withstand earthquakes, being capable of withstanding a quake of magnitude 6.7 on the Richter scale.
I don't know, but placing servers 100m underground in a place that routinely is hit by large earthquakes seems a dubious idea. The containers themselves may survive a quake, but what happens when the disused coal mine collapses onto and around them? Even if the containers and servers survive, will the power and data cables? If the tunnels collapse how will you get to and from the servers for maintenance?
Three Squirrels
They must have gotten the idea from Cryptonomicon. Epiphyte builds the data haven in a cave.
Since this is a basement dweller's dream job come true, Sun won't have to pay too much for labor.
So...essentially, they're using the same process as (what Wikipedia refers to as) Geo-exchange, only instead of bringing the constant-temperature (hot or cold, depending on surface temperature) to a building on the surface with heat exchangers, they are bringing the 'building' to be cooled underground.
I guess that's... cool?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...especially in Japan, where there is literally a sea of coolant all around. At least leave the computing equipment at the surface and do heat exchange with the cave climate.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
Damn flu medicine makes my head feel like its full of glue. I could have sworn the title was "Sun To Create Underground Japanese Detector". I had to go read the article to try and figure out what underground Japanese are, and why you would want to detect them.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
has been reading Cryptonomicon.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
From TFA...
The containers will be lowered 100m into the mine and linked to power, water cooling and network lines via external connectors.
Sun has been developing its Blackbox concept for three years and a typical one has 250 servers mounted in seven racks inside a standard 20-foot shipping container.
Not to be thick-headed here, but what happens when they have a hardware failure? I'm not sure what the failure rate is on their hardware, but it must be greater than zero, right?
Coal-powered cooling scheme for your datacenter!
That's genius
Sun to create datacenter in the land of the rising Sun.
Bought the ticket, taking the ride.
I remember the last San Fran Earthquake and we had to get a warm site up and running using all the backup tapes from our offsite storage company. The storage vault was 100% ok, the warm site was 100% ok and I couldn't get anyone to drive the truck through a post apocalyptic thunder dome. I suspect that getting a bunch of nerds to work in an abandoned coal mine will be greeted by dumbstruck looks when you see a giant fire breathing dinosaur.
Putting the servers in a deep dark hole is one way to save on heating costs. The other is to not heat your servers.
Remember the stories about the underground Japanese city? Hmm they need a supercomputer, so what they use as a ruse to get one? UNDERGROUND DATACENTER! I need assist from fellow internet matlocks!
I agree that it's always cool underground (in the 50s F range) however a problem they might run into is the humidity. Depending on the cave/mine the air can be quite humid and could pose a problem for the machinery. Seems like a tough thing space to "air condition" the water content.
I know they want to be safe from Godzilla, but is it safe from Megalon's powerful digging drill hands??? I think not!
"But they delved too greedily and too deep, awakening the ancient evil."
A couple of examples come to mind.
The Government of Canada marijuana farm is located in an old copper mine in Manitoba. You can't beat the security, which is something mentioned in tfa. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2001/08/02/marijuana_010802.html
A solar neutrino observatory is installed in an old mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canads. It has the advantage of being impervious to almost all kinds of radiation, except of course for neutrinos. http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/
As I look at the other posts, I see lots of naysayers. Well there are at least a couple of cases where old mines have been used successfully for other things.
But in the case of goatse is "where the sun don't shine" really valid?
Old mines have a nasty tendency to flood, or at least slowly get a few inches of water over the years from seepage.
I think I've been watching too many cheesy movies.
I read that as "Sun to Create Underground Japanese Dictator"
Is it just me, or does this sound like the opening setup of a FPS game?
"Deep in an underground laboratory, something has gone wrong... terribly wrong."
Isn't this Neal Stephenson's idea?
They save a bundle in HVAC costs, but now they face the prospect of black lung disease...
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
Sun to shine where the sun don't shine in the land of the rising sun.
You know what?
Why is this news? Individuals can even pay a company to store data like a home network backup or workstation ghosts underground in case of disaster or solar flare.
I guess a working network underground is a little different and the next step. Oh crap wait, does that mean if I work for a big corporation now I have to live six floors underground? Cause it used to be only cold war scientists had to do that. GIBSON!!!! (shakes fist)
I guess when the robot zombies learn how to spray your house with benezene it may be time...
You are in a twisty maze of passages all alike.
If they name the systems in that facility the MAGI, I think it's time I move a few hundred miles inland.
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
And a constant temperature of 98.6F would not be a great environment for servers.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
No, it runs Unix, aka Solaris 10.
the technology is too problematic, runs too hot, requires a narrowband of operating conditions and so on. Why not invest in the technology rather than workarounds?
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
You raise an interesting point about heat dissipation in an underground datacenter. I remember seeing something on NORAD years ago about the construction of the command center inside Cheyenne Mountain. One of the things that stuck with me was the fact that there was no dedicated heating system: they merely ducted the waste heat from their 150+ mainframes throughout the entire installation. Kept 'em all nice and toasty warm, even in a Colorado winter.
This is Japan after all. Clearly, they will be building a secret base where they will build an army of giant robots to either
a) defend against extra-terrestrial attacks,
b) attack Microsoft.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
duh how the hell does this reduce heating problems and shit? it seems to me if you build the darn thing where the sun don't shine as an earlier poster said, then it would get hotter not colder cuz the cottonpickin earth all around would serve as an insulator and cause the datacenter to fry itself and shit.
Data center - right!
Its going to be Dr. Evil's lair.
At the end of TFA it says cost will be $405M... all that for a saving of $9M in electricity. That's about a 2% yearly return - pants.
If its security, then maybe, but in comparison to the depreciation on $405M of computer hardware, the Green IT is just sales gumph.
I've been an engineer for over 20 years, and been on the design end of many data center cooling projects, and I call BS on this. It would be much cheaper and simpler to use an earth-coupled system - just bore a hole to the ground water, and pump it up to the surface, cool the data center with it, and pump it back down. This can be either closed loop or open loop, and it will cost a tiny fraction of actually putting the black boxes in the mine. At the surface, conductive heat gain from the environment can easily be reduced to practically zero with appropriate insulation and isolation materials. Radiant heat gain can be blocked completely.
In addition, 10K cores at 50 Watts each is 500kW. So in an hour, you need to dissipate a little less than 500,000 kcal. Even with a 10 degree delta-t for the water, that means 50,000 liters per hour of water. And it is damn near impossible to get to that 10 degree mark with passive water cooling of air.... it would have to be watercooled processors directly. The better way would be to use a water-jacketed condenser coil on a conventional air conditioning system.... and even a cooling tower rather than pumping water up from the mine. I'd use the mine for make-up water only.
Putting it in a cave is not a win. The ground water cooling is great, but by putting it in a cave they are severely limiting their access to air-side economization, which is bringing in filtered outside air directly when it is cooler than the rack's exhaust temperature. And if you're doing it right, the rack's exhaust temperature is 95F+ (when we do a hot aisle, we make it a hot aisle dangit). As a professional in the efficient datacenter arena, the mention that they are still using chillers at all when they have a source of ground water is actually pretty disappointing. Sure it takes some custom work, but if you have a high flow enough source of 60F or lower water, you're done. Of course, it has to be very high flow - 13,650 gpm for a 30MW datacenter (a size we're seeing more and more - those 20kW+ blade racks are killers). Also, bringing the water up to the datacenter is way easier than bringing the datacenter to the water - it's called a pump, wiki it. The comment about "no air conditioning will be required outside of the containers" is a bit stupid. There is nothing located outside of the containers, so of course there is no air conditioning required there. I don't air condition the parking lot just outside a traditional datacenter either. Short summary: Datacenter in a mine = security win, HVAC fail.
Put them underground. The surrounding environment is constant(about 65 F), no rain, more secure, money savings.
Plus you could have a secret nuclear power plant for your world domination plans.
Although the Japanese do have a design for a completely unmanned plant.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Underground coal fires are notoriously hard to put out... in some cases they can burn for years.