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One Data Center To Rule Them All
1sockchuck writes "Weta Digital, the New Zealand studio that created the visual effects for the 'Lord of the Rings' movie trilogy, has launched a new "extreme density" data center to provide the computing horsepower to power its digital renderings. Weta is running four clusters that are each equipped with 156 of HP's new 2-in-1 blade servers, and use liquid cooling to manage the heat loads. The Weta render farms currently hold spots 219 through 222 on the current Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers."
a balrog cluster of them!
How do they release the heat in the hot water?
Two Towers?
I can't mention who I work for for obvious reasons, but we did some experimenting with "extreme density" computing some time ago as part of a black ops project for the government. We achieved densities previously unheard of by man.
Unfortunately, we got greedy. We increased the density so far that the entire facility ended up collapsing into a black hole, wiping out much of the state of North Dakota. We were able to contain the damage, and we've managed to keep it a secret by replacing the state with a hologram projection, but eventually someone is going to go there and figure out that something is amiss.
I'm of a mixed mindset when it comes to water-cooled datacenters.
On one hand, you've got the makings of a biblical scale disaster with all that water and electricity mixing.
We had such a disaster many years ago.
The coolant lines themselves circled the walls near the ceiling of the dinosaur pen. Beneath each line was a drip tray that was alarmed to sound in case moisture was detected. These drip trays ran the entire length of the coolant lines. That is, the entire length except for about six inches in the very corner, where it was too hard for the tray installers to get to because they were behind the conduit leading down to the main power transformer. I can only assume that all that conduit also made it difficult for the plumbers to properly solder the elbow in the cooling line as well.
Of course there was only one place for the pipe to leak. The version of the tale I heard implies an impressive display of fireworks was seen by all present as the coolant entered the transformer.
Fortunately, the loss of power did not damage the mainframes (except for their ability to run.) The rooftop generator was fired up, and in short order the mainframes were back on line.
And in short order the generator engines stopped because the fuel tanks were kept almost empty, the plan being to fully fuel them only in case of need.
Once the replacement fuel was delivered, the generators ran for only a few minutes before dying again, this time for good. The ancient fuel had congealed in the injectors once the engines had stopped running.
We ran our data center for two weeks powered from a truck-based generator parked in the street while the electricians replaced the transformers and repaired the generators.
I now hear the diesel generator being started every month or two, and run for a few hours.
Rather than a biblical disaster, I'd say it was more like a Marx Brothers' movie.
John