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The Google Navy
theodp writes "Is Google preparing to launch its own Navy? In its just-published application for a patent on the Water-Based Data Center, Google envisions a world where 'computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away from computers in the data center.' And you thought The Onion was joking when it reported on Google's Fleet of Naval Warships!"
Now focus on that apart from the fact that it would also allow them to shift the jurisdiction of their operations when laws change in specific regions.
Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters. If any of these are launched, shall we start the pool on how long until the "Google fighting Piracy" joke headlines?
Ice Cream has no bones.
Google envisions a world where 'computing centers are located on a ship or ships
My father-in-law worked as a linesman for AT&T about 30 years at a beach town in southern New Jersey. He told me that they had to replace electrnoic components almost twice as quickly as more inland areas because of the more corrosive saltwater air.
If this is a real effect, I imagine that it will be difficult to prevent on a ship in the ocean.
I'm a big tall mofo.
are these going to be stationed more than 12 nautical miles away from the coast? 'cause, you know, then they wouldn't be under US jurisdiction.
My sig has been answered.
Add to that wave power, custom built ships just for this purpose anchored in place, fiber connection to the mainland and it may well prove to be cheaper over the long term than a land-based air conditioned building that requires lots of power. Air conditioning is a huge part of the long term cost of a datacenter, using water cooling with abundant supplies of water seems like a very green way of doing things.
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But there's the matter of pizza delivery.
So presumably these ships will connect through a series of Google-Sats in geo-stationary orbits, linking to a Google-hub in each country. And behold, Google shall inherit the Earth. Thankfully, a network of Microsoft terrorists will be able to track then using Virtual Earth and infect the servers with Windows, thus rendering them useless and saving us all.
Smivs on the intertubes!
Not to mention that there's no property tax (being taxed to occupy real estate), if the local business or economic climate goes bad you can pick up and be towed to a different location, and you can always add more units if demand increases. The one problem I see is pirates. No, seriously - you anchor one of these away from an area patrolled by a decent navy/coast guard, and I can see someone paying you a visit late one night to haul away equipment...
Google Earth sees the pirates before they get close. I'm not sure what Google Boat does then, but it may involve ninjas.
If Google (or Microsoft, or Apple, or..) doesn't patent every single idea they come up with now, someone else will sue them for it later on. If you were sued as often as Google, you'd learn to CYA every chance you could get. Such insanity is the price of doing business in the USA.
So owning patents (frivolous or not) is neutral. Releasing patents to the public is good. Suing others over frivolous patents is evil.
Google may not be doing "good", but they're still following their mantra.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Russia's "Bazalt" naval weapons manufacturer recently proposed arming commercial vessels with automatic grenade launchers to deter pirates. There is an idea for Google! They can start with grenades and later upgrade to anti-ship missiles. Or just build an aircraft carrier and save on future operating costs and upgrades :)
No.
GoogleBoat will GoogleFloat to a (Google)Safe (Google)Location.
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Or just patrolling sharks with mounted lasers!
I think they can manage 12 nano meters
... but patenting it? WTF?
Sorry, Google, but the patent really doesn't fit with "don't be evil." Do you guys remember that phrase?
even worse, it's a submarine patent!
But seriously, am I the only one who sees an inevitable path from "offshore datacenters" to "cyberpunk future where major corporations like Google declare sovereignty"?
First, sea water temperatures vary greatly depending on the part of the world you're operating in. It's not uncommon for surface sea water temps to be in the 85F(30C)+ range for most areas where you're likely to moor a ship. The AC units that we used were barely able to keep the small server room that I ran cool under those conditions.
Second, the motion of the ship caused premature drive failures due to the pitch and roll of the ship. This could be alleviated with solid state drives, but that's a bit off for a data center at the moment.
Lastly, bandwidth and latency are problematic. Sure, Google could just buy a satellite, but they can't modify the 2000ms latency. Depending on ship size and sea conditions, keeping a satellite lock may be an issue as well due to roll.
All I can really say to Google is, good luck with all that!
Google Earth sees the pirates before they get close. I'm not sure what Google Boat does then, but it may involve ninjas.
Ahem... that would be Google Ninjas(TM).
... but they're still in beta.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
Point taken on water temp, security and connections. Why not just have a submersible barge, and drop down to the ocean floor.
Makes it easy to moor. Fiber just lays on the ocean floor. Improved Security, and the water will be much cooler. Sort of a barge made like a giant heatsink. Mount the processors to the hull.
When the barge looses enough hardware, just raise it back up, service it and drop it back down.
Also reduced problems with being pitched around causing lost disk drives. Hurricanes? No problem.
That's unpossible. More pirates would cause a corresponding drop in global climate temperature.
Ramen.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Also, powering the data center using tidal power would be taking energy out of the ocean. While the water cooling would be dumping energy back into the ocean, it will be dumping in less energy than was taken out, so there should actually be a net cooling of the ocean.
Something like 99.4% of patents never make a cent.
This one is particularly loopy.
Let's do the math. Let's say Google buys the Queen Mary. 80,000 tons. Let's say they anchor it someplace with an average wave height of 20 feet, wave period of 10 seconds. Raising 80,000 tons at 2 feet per second takes about 160,000 horsepower. Hmmm, that's very close to the original steaming capacity of the QM. In watts, that's about 120 megawatts, about ten times more than you'd need if you packed the ship with servers. Okay, so that looks easily doable.
Problem is, buying the electricity would be much cheaper. 12 megawatts will cost you about $700 an hour. Can you run and maintain and pay on the principal and pay salaries and insurance on $700/hour? No, not a couple of powers of ten.
"Ahem...that would be Google Ninjas(TM)....but they're still in beta"
Ahem...that would be Google Grasshoppers(TM).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.