Yahoo's "Chicken Coop" Data Center Design

1sockchuck writes "Yahoo has come up with a data center design called the Yahoo Computing Coop, which it says will make its new data center in Lockport, NY one of the most efficient on earth. The design features 120-foot by 60-foot metal prefabricated facilities with louvers on the side to support free cooling, and a peaked roof to manage the release of waste heat from the hot aisle. Chief Yahoo David Filo said the name was adopted 'because it looks like something chickens live in.' The $150 million data center in Western New York, which was announced earlier today, will run on cheap hydro power from the Niagara River."

Comments

um...grats?

[Aurisor]

I'm rather mystified that there's still interest in Yahoo. Although I'm aware that their hand-edited, directory-like coverage is actually popular in countries that use non-ascii character sets, Yahoo's search results haven't seemed competitive to me since '97.

Honestly, I'm not trying to troll; just wondering why a site that's stagnated for over 10 years now needs anything cutting-edge.

Anyone still using them? Have any insights why we ought to care what they're up to?

Re:um...grats?

[Statecraftsman]

Some people like the clean look of a Google homepage while others who want a little news go with Yahoo. Also, AT&T plugs a lot of people into a Yahoo homepage by default. For many, it's not about search, it's about homepages.

Re:um...grats?

[powerslave12r]

Google tends to be for people who know what they want.

Yahoo tends to be for people who want to be fed/entertained/informed by whatever's there on the table (say like a TV channel).

Of course I generalize.

Opinion: I'm sure, the answer to your question about who uses them is "A lot of people."

Re:um...grats?

[omeomi]

Some people like the clean look of a Google homepage while others who want a little news go with Yahoo

So turn on iGoogle, and display all the extra info that you want on your homepage...

Re:um...grats?

[HuckleCom]

Yahoo, like google doesn't -JUST- provide a search engine nad I hope you've noticed that. In my world at least Yahoo definately has it going on with YUI - so much so that google homepages are using yui components

Re:um...grats?

[plover]

Yahoo! does a lot more than just search or portal services. I wouldn't be surprised to learn if most of their revenue comes from providing secure web stores.

Re:um...grats?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Since this is a hardware story, the mediocrity of their software side isn't a serious drawback.

In fact, that mediocrity might actually be driving some of their hardware/facilities innovation. If you are kicking ass on the software side, getting favorable ad rates, lots of buzz keeping the investors happy no matter what your P/E is, etc. you can get away with some infrastructure inefficiency(under good management you will still work to reduce this; but not doing so is easier than doing so, and you'll survive). If, however, your buzz is gone, your ad rates are slipping, and you have sharks gnawing on your stock, you can't afford to run a sloppy operation. If your revenue per visitor is poor, catering to that visitor had better be damn cheap.

Now, if a company is too far gone, or under the influence of Wall street oriented buzzsaw management, they won't have the talent needed to innovate, having lost/sacked their R&D people, and it is game over; but if a company is on the ropes but not yet down, or if their margins are simply not very good, you might expect them to do some interesting infrastructure stuff. Dell would be another one I'd put in the category. Software/design stories about them tend to be a yawn, or an embarrassment(Adamo, WTF?) but their logistics and supply chain guys are probably all cyborg ninja assassins.

Re:um...grats?

[DerekLyons]

Yahoo's search results haven't seemed competitive to me since '97.

Hint: There's much more to do on the web than search, and thus Yahoo! (and Google) provide a lot more services than search.
 
 

Honestly, I'm not trying to troll; just wondering why a site that's stagnated for over 10 years now needs anything cutting-edge.

Honestly, not trying to troll or flamebait, but are you really as ignorant as your posting makes you sound? Are you really too lazy to visit http://www.yahoo.com and spend a little time just reading the page and clicking around on the services offered?

Anyone still using them? Have any insights why we ought to care what they're up to?

I'm still using them because Google offers nothing to match the Yahoo! page I use as a homepage. (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb.) I still use Yahoo! mail for some functions as it's UI beats Gmail hands down. I still track my finances at Yahoo! because their management and analysis tools are superior to those provided by Google. I use Flickr because the collaboration and other tools it provides are superior to Picasa's. Etc... Etc...
 
Google's predominance in search and advertising blinds people to the 'also ran' status of so many of it's other services.

Re:um...grats?

[westlake]

Google tends to be for people who know what they want.

Which is why a typical Google search returns 16 million hits.

Re:um...grats?

[HockeyPuck]

I personally like http://finance.yahoo.com/ much better than http://finance.google.com/. The portfolio, quote and chart information is much better with yahoo.

Additionally, instant messaging. Why should I pick a platform/protocol/client that none of my friends or family use? I guess I could spend plenty of time getting them to switch, however, then they in turn have to convince their friends/family to convert as well.

Google is great at search, but beyond that.. not that much else attracts me to it from an application point of view. Someone once said, "Google is a method of getting somewhere, Yahoo is a destination."

Re:um...grats?

[afidel]

Uh, my igoogle entertainment page is much more usable than that ugly mess and it's specialized to the teams I follow as well as including general sports information. It also includes non sports related entertainment addons which I mixed and matched to meet my preferences, not something provided to me on some media companies terms.

Re:um...grats?

[davester666]

I'm mystified by the "cheap hydro power from the Niagara River" part.

Since the story doesn't claim that they are funding the construction of a new hydro-electric dam, they are just saying 'well, we're close to a dam, so we'll claim that our power needs are clean, and you bastards further away, that were going to get this electricity if we didn't use it, you are using electricity from those ozone-destroying, greenhouse gas-generating, scarce fossil-fuel burning power plants'.

Why do we let companies get away with these stupid claims. Unless they actually are responsible for building the clean power source, they should be denied the ability to claim they are using so-called 'clean' energy just because they happen to be physically near a pre-existing 'clean' energy source.

Re:um...grats?

[Jeeeb]

For one mail - Even when gmail came out with all the hype about 1gb of storage space, I stuck with yahoo and the puny 4mb it was offering, for the simple reason that changing mail address is a pita. Now I'm not sure if there is even a storage limit at all. I also now have multiple yahoo address all redirecting to my main one. That way I have an address with my real name for things like resumes .etc.

There are lots of other services though. Yahoo auctions is extremely popular in Japan. I've never heard anyone mention e-bay here.

The Yahoo Japan travel service is also pretty popular and convenient. I've booked night bus tickets between Osaka and Tokyo several times through it. Could search and compare prices, all the form details are stored with my yahoo ID and you can use the payment systems at convenience stores here to pay in cash rather than giving out your credit card details :)

Another big one is the biggest of the job-hunting sites here (rikunabi) is linked to yahoo. You login with your Yahoo Japan ID.

Then there's TV guides, news, shopping, weather etc. Through yahoo sports you can get live updated coverage of sporting events. Great for things where you don't want to sit watching it but do want to track the score :).

To be honest I'm surprised yahoo isn't more popular in the west. For most of what people want to do on the web you don't really need search and having a central hub to deal with it all actually makes a lot of sense.

Re:um...grats?

[unfasten]

...people can be logged into iGoogle, and still block adsense and all the other crap they disapprove of.

You are logged into their servers. They don't need all that fancy javascript and other voodoo to track you. They know exactly who you are because you're sitting there screaming it at them. All they need to do is log it straight to your account.

Sure, AdSense on other sites might be blocked but anything you do on their servers while logged in is easily logged on their end.

Re:um...grats?

[6Yankee]

That comes down quite rapidly, though, once you start specifying things like her hair colour... ...or so I'm told...

Phew

[hansraj]

For a moment there I panicked about a chicken coup trying to overtake Yahoo. Although chickens can not make it any worse for Yahoo than it already is.

The image of millions of chickens rising up against the tyranny of Yahoo and running around all excited is simply awesome. I, therefore, petition that Yahoo at least change the name to Chicken Coup if not go all the way to welcoming their new chicken overlords!

Re:Phew

[Somegeek]

chickens in choppers?

Will this Yahoo idea live up to the hype?

[bogaboga]

I certainly hope it does. You see, I have doubts on the viability of whatever Yahoo does. A company that shuts down three services in less than 8 months (Y!Live, Jumpcut and Maven Networks), you begin to wonder whether they know what they are doing.

On my mail account, Yahoo have decided to make it more bloated with Facebook/Twitter like services while requiring money to mark more than 500 addresses as spam addresses. By the way, you cannot redirect mail from a Yahoo account or access it via POP3 without shelling out cash. Insane with the likes of free Gmail out there.

I have also noticed that Yahoo search is capturing any invalid URLs I enter into the Google search page...adding to my agony and dislike of the company. If I want to search, I know where to go. Bottom line, Yahoo do not know what they are doing in my not so humble opinion.

Re:Will this Yahoo idea live up to the hype?

[PitaBred]

Yahoo! knows exactly what they're doing. They just don't give a shit about users that know better. The ones that know better aren't the type of person to pay for services.

Lockport

[westlake]

Lockport is where the Erie Canal climbs the Niagara Escarpment.

The canal itself was and is a source of hydro-power - think of it as a 350 mile nineteenth century industrial corridor cut across upstate New York. The work of self-taught engineers and Irish immigrant labor - with no better tools available than the pick axe and black powder.

Lockport is a small city of about 20,000 that has been spared the frauds and fancies that have plagued the redevelopment of Niagara Falls. It is about 16 miles northeast of the SUNY Amherst campus.

Flickr and games.yahoo.com

[sofakingon]

I have been using Yahoo! Flickr on a nearly daily basis, and for online card/board games, yahoo is a great place to play. Yahoo stopped being a search engine a looooong time ago, but still does other things quite well.

WTF?

[oldhack]

What sorta chicken shit operation is Yahoo turning into?

Re:Hot Air

[TapeCutter]

I hear performance will now be quoted in cluck cycles. /sorry

Re:Hot Air

[Philip K Dickhead]

Microsoft has been building these for 2 years.

Everybody will be, 2 years from now.

Re:Hot Air

[donrich39]

They should build the "Chicken Coops" IN the river, thus taking advantage of free water cooling.