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Data Center Designers In High Demand

Posted by timothy on from the blinky-blue-is-the-new-dull-amber dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "For years, data center designers have toiled in obscurity in the engine rooms of the digital economy, amid the racks of servers and storage devices that power everything from online videos to corporate e-mail systems but now people with the skills to design, build and run a data center that does not endanger the power grid are suddenly in demand. 'The data center energy problem is growing fast, and it has an economic importance that far outweighs the electricity use,' said Jonathan G. Koomey of Stanford University. 'So that explains why these data center people, who haven't gotten a lot of glory in their careers, are in the spotlight now.' The pace of the data center build-up is the result of the surging use of servers, which in the United States rose to 11.8 million in 2007, from 2.6 million a decade earlier. 'For years and years, the attitude was just buy it, install it and don't worry about it,' says Vernon Turner, an analyst for IDC. 'That led to all sorts of inefficiencies. Now, we're paying for that behavior.'" On a related note, an anonymous reader contributes this link to an interesting look at how a data center gets built.

7 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Because the power grid has become very fragile by Kohath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is only a problem because the power grid has become very fragile.

    Electricity generation hasn't grown ahead of demand due to government meddling, atom-ophobia, and environmentalist obstruction in the courts and on planning boards.

    The rolling blackouts will be coming soon. It'll start with small ones. Then everyone will buy battery backups that draw a lot of power to recharge once power is restored. This will cause the duration of the periodic blackouts to go from a few minutes to a few hours in about 2 years.

    Not long after that, we'll start building power generation capacity in the US again.

    1. Re:Because the power grid has become very fragile by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      On the other hand, it might be the final push that people need to start making their homes and businesses as energy efficient as possible, up to and including home solar and/or wind; use of more energy-efficient appliances, low-power-consumption electronics, etc.

      I would dare say that the future looks good for ARM and Via on that last account, at least.

  2. BOFH style designers? by apathy+maybe · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Before someone else does it, I direct you to BOFH, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/23/bofh_2008_episode_19/
    The BOFH cares about important things:

    "There are seven pubs and two Indian joints within a one block radius, a tube station a couple of blocks away and a women's fitness centre across the road."
    Like service:

    "WE COULD CUT A HOLE IN THE FLOOR OF MISSION CONTROL, INSTALL A POLE, KEEP A CAR IN THE SERVICE BAYS AND CALL IT THE BATMOBILE!"


    So, besides electricity usage, what else should you care about? How about heat? Your room can't be too hot (you can send all the heat to the swimming pool in the fitness centre...).

    What about wires? Both a OHS issue, and a potential to kill off half your servers if you trip over an exposed power cord or network line. So you lay them under the floor?

    Complicated stuff this...
    --
    I wank in the shower.
  3. endanger the power grid? by khallow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't understand the peculiar emphasis the New York Times places on "endangering" the power grid. Even though a data center uses a lot of electricity, it's a high value operation that needs a stable power supply. What's wrong with the idea of paying more to insure that your power supply is sufficiently stable for your needs? The power company accepting those checks can then work on delivering that power. It's like saying that I'm somehow responsible for the stability of the oil production and distribution infrastructure because I drive a car. Perhaps, if I tweak my engine just so, I can engineer a democratic transformation of Saudi Arabia. I'll see if changing the oil does the trick.

    At some point, you have to realize that the consumer, no matter how big, isn't responsible for the supply of resources by another party. If there's a problem with how those resources are supplied, be it fixed price (regardless of demand) power transmission lines, pollution, or deforestation, then that problem should appear as an increase in cost to the consumer. If it isn't, then it's a problem with how the resource is distributed, not a problem with the consumer.

  4. There has always been a shortage by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There has been a shortage of architectural engineers for the past two decades. I say architectural engineers because very few mechanical engineers go into HVAC, and very few electrical engineers do power systems. It doesn't seem quite as bad structurally.

    It us a shame because it really has a lot of great career opportunities.

    Data center work is just a subset of that-- it is hard to find people with the experience, but not impossible to train.

  5. Video tour of data center design & constructio by miller60 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On the "how a data center gets built" front, last week I had a tour of a new $250 million data center facility in Virginia that is getting ready to open later this month. The facility manager provided a walk-through of the power and cooling infrastructure, explaining the company's approach to designing these systems for energy efficiency and scale. I shot video, which is now posted online. The data center operator, Terremark, separated most of the electrical infrastructure from the IT equipment, putting them on separate floors and housing the generators in a separate facility. They have 11 generators now, but will have 55 Caterpillar 2.25-megawatt units when the entire complex is finished.

    --
    RichM
    Data Center Knowledge
  6. Re:Use geography to solve the cooling problems... by jsailor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While it may appear that you don't have to work hard to cool the data centers, you will have to work hard to humidify them if you do not want your equipment to die. This is a non-trivial cost and is the reason the "free cooling" (taking in outside air to cool a data center) is often not free.
    One answer may be heat wheels, but they are fairly new and unproven in the data center space. Take a look at http://www.kyotocooling.com/