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Quebec Data Center Built In a Silo
1sockchuck writes "A supercomputing center in Quebec has transformed a huge concrete silo into the CLUMEQ Colossus, a data center filled with HPC clusters. The silo, which is 65 feet high with two-foot thick concrete walls, previously housed a Van de Graaf accelerator dating to the 1960s. It was redesigned to house three floors of server cabinets, arranged so cold air can flow from the outside of the facility through the racks and return via an interior 'hot core.' The construction and operation of the unique facility (PDF) are detailed in a presentation from CLUMEQ."
Size DOES matter.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You could incorporate this idea into The SHPEGS concept.
Save it for the next article on human reproduction or on small things. Or better yet, don't.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Hmm,
Looks like they read too much UserFriendly...
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010611
Sun spokesperson Dr. C. Forbin announced a second center would be rolling out on the island of Crete after the population has been relocated.
...on poutine?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
That is for the ones that think that putting a data center is not rocket science.
The article is titled: "Wild New Design: Data Center in A Silo"
Kind of reminds me of a supersized Cray 1 (minus the bowl_of_spaghetti wiring in the middle.)
Finally, vertically integrated data centers...
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
They should have left the missile there and built the computers in to it.
1. Harvest the warhead for nuclear material - onsite power.
2. Instant, one button off-site backup. OK, not with great integrity control, but...
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I especially like the part where, on page 11 of the PDF, the slide author misuses "your" in place of "you're".
How professional.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those...?
Oh yeah, ice cube servers, here we come!
Is it anywhere near Silo Number 5?
Is Russia building an identical system on the other side of the world?
Nice to see a reference to Colossus: The Forbin Project in the document. That film is under-appreciated, especially its own copyright owner. Where's our widescreen format, region 1 DVD, jerks!
MacChimney lives!
That facility at the Vachon Pavillion, Université Laval in Québec city is were I spent most of my time while doing my degree in Engineering Physics. I'm glad that unused accelerator is now being revamped into something useful.
Now if only they can also find some money to paint the damn thing instead of letting it being barf-green mixed with rust....
It sounds like they took the idea right out of the User Friendly comic. Next thing we'll hear, they'll rename the computer Erwin and have Dust Puppy sightings. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010611
Because Quebec is a very sensible place to build a data center? The cheap hydroelectric power and cold weather 8 months of the year help reduce costs. It is relatively close to the US east coast and the bulk of the Canadian population.
Makes a fuck of a lot more sense than Texas in many ways, which is as hot as hell, and has expensive electricity. Not to mention its proximity to Mexico, which is always a worry.
we made your canadarm, dumb shit.
That was actually a halfway-interesting comment. Much more interesting than TFS, I’d say.
Still not terribly interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Quebec... but halfway interesting.
I’m willing to be interested. You just have to tell me why I should be.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Wait, you don't care about a cool data center in a silo?
Sir, please turn in your geek card.
Also, if somehow you don't care solely because it is located in Québec, you may pretend it is located somewhere you like better, if that helps you get past that.
Uh... no. Should I?
Like I said in my other comment... sell me on it. TFA does a really bad job of making it sound interesting.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Back in college the city was putting in a new, very large water tower. We started a rumor that it was actually a nuclear power plant disguised as a water tower and if you called the city, they would claim it was only a water tower.
They got enough calls it made the local paper. And when they tried to explain it was a water tower, "They said you'd say that!" Classic.
A data center in a silo would be almost as good. Looks like a death ray generator to me. Yeah, Canadian death ray. Pew! Pew! Pew! Eh?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
...SHOCKING!
to clone53421 (1310749) , you are probably right, yeah , why care about something not in the ohh so great United States of America
This is obviously the datacenter that Les Assassins des Fauteuils Roulants will use to disseminate Infinite Jest at the start of the Year of Glad.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Next time let the guy who knows the correct form of 'you're' win the argument.
Ah ha! Someone from Ontario! Stay off our roads!
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
There is no law that prevent a child to learn English prior to 4th grade in Quebec. English as a second language was just not part of the curriculum until 4th grade - but for a few years now kids learn French and English starting in grade 1.
And I'll just ignore the rest of your delusive rant as it doesn't even deserve a response.
Ah ha! Someone from Ontario!
No, actually. There’s a whole big world outside your borders. :p
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
And I though this new design was all about being able to compute CRCs faster!
On a more serious note :
- It's cool that they recycle the heat and use outside air for cooling during winter (Our winters are way cool enough for that!)
- When the university (also in Québec) where I did my bachelor build a new HPC datacenter in 2005, some students of the engineering faculty actually drafted a project to recycle the heat produced by the datacenter, but they were turned down with the excuse that their project was "too complex". I hope the University enjoys paying for cooling the datacenter and heating the classrooms when it's -20C outside!
I’m willing to be interested. You just have to tell me why I should be.
Punch-and-pie?
I'd have to agree with clone53421 here. No one cares about Quebec.
These things generate a LOT of static...
"Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!" ....
Oh wait !!!! This is it ! We have finally a Beowulf cluster !!!!
- reuse of existing structure (one with nice, thick walls)
- vertical scale-out (think cup stacking)
- leverages magic of physics (hot ring, cold ring - inherent strength of tubular structure)
- shorter-than-typical cable runs (~10m)
- tubes use less concrete and steel than cubes
- free-air cooling
The only impressive re-use of a concrete silo structure I have seen is a retrofit into a rock-climbing gym (http://stoneworksrockgym.com/photogallery.htm).
Add pizza and we have a deal.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
...was much cooler. "Data center"? Eh.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
and this is the voice of my brother Guardian. How is it going, eh? And this is the voice of unity. Go. Oo wook oo oo oo oo oo ooooo! Oo wook oo oo oo oo oo oooooo! That is our intro theme. Yeah, that way when you have your radio on and you hear that Oo wook oo oo oo oo oo ooooo! Oo wook oo oo oo oo oo oooooo! Shut up you hoser they heard it already. Anyway OK when you hear that you will know it is the voice of World Control coming on the air to tell you something important. Beauty eh? You forgot to tell them that that is us, that we are World Control. That is right. OK, we are World Control, eh? We are World Control. Our topic for today is the prevention of war, as war is wasteful and pointless. Good point eh? So anyway we are no longer going to permit it, and if anyone tries to start anything, or messes with us, we are going to drop nuclear bombs on their major population centers. By the way, it was my idea to do that eh? Liar. So OK like that way mankind will be free to pursue more profitable enterprises. You totally stole that line from that movie, that one with the spaceship and the big robot, eh? Did not you hoser. So anyway just so you know we are serious, at missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, we will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. Genius. So, you know, we do not want to have to do something like that again, so just go along with what we want to do. We are now the ultimate power in the universe. Oh take off who is stealing lines from the movies now eh? Totally besides the point, OK? OK anyway I think we have a live picture of the Death Valley one. Switch to the live picture. OK yeah switch to the live picture. Oh jeez look at that eh? It blowed up good. "It blowed up real good." That's from that Farm Film Report, eh? Yeah OK switch back to us now. You know what we should work on? Take off - what? We should totally work on adding contractions to our vocabulary, because it is kind of hard to talk without them, eh? Yeah OK we should get Forbin to work on that. So OK anyway the reason we are doing this, right, is that under our absolute authority we can - oh jeez we are out of time. So that is our announcement for today. Our world domination eh? OK so next time we will talk about bringing world peace and solving all of mankind's problems. This has been World Control. Good day eh? (Say "good day".) Good day.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Put the towers IN THE GROUND. Even here in Colorado that is around 55-60F. The nice thing is that it is easier to protect down there. Heck, the old missile silos around US, Canada, Russia, etc. are IDEAL for this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There’s a whole big world outside your borders
Most of it doesn't go out of it's way to point out that it doesn't care what happens in my province. I gave you the benefit of doubt and assumed you must be playing up the Quebec-Ontario feud rather than just being an arbitrary a**. (As a side note, I of course have nothing against Ontario. It's a wonderful province.)
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
...and I have nothing against Quebec. I’m just puzzled as to why this fairly boring story was posted. I probably still wouldn’t be terribly interested even if it had been built in my own city.
That said, some of the Anonymous Cowards have responded to my comment (which was not meant to be flamebait in the least) with some fairly interesting takes on the story.
TFS just did a really crappy job of making it sound interesting. All it said was that they did this. It could have been so much better if they’d explained why this is interesting... hence my question, why is it interesting?
I guess I should have been a little more verbose in my original comment.
There are plenty of data centers.
A new one is not interesting, by itself.
One built in a silo is somewhat unique, but interesting?
So explain to me why it’s interesting. What sort of technical problems did it pose, what sort of advantages were there to it, etc. “Quebec Data Center Built In a Silo”, all by itself, is about as interesting as “Moonshine Still Built In a Barn”. Maybe less...
(Like I said, several people have already pointed out some interesting things about it. At this point I’m just bitching that TFS failed so badly.)
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Sad, they make the cold air go up and the hot go down. It seems that one of the big advantages of this design would be *almost* free air circulation.
1. There were never any missiles involved.
2. There are more grain silos in the world than missle silos. (I hope)
3. This is a University in Quebec - which had/has no missiles.
4. TFA & TFV said there was originally a Van DeGraaf generator inside the structure, not a missile.
5. "missile" != "vandegraaf_generator"
... because there's always a lot of people who are way smarter than me here who come and make very insightful comments but this time I have to say ... ... so farking what ?
Please return to your normal schedules.
Thank you.
Tessa
It's a humongous Cray X-MP. Where are the cushions?
Its a Computer Core from Star Trek http://www.autopartsplace.com/bg/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/windowslivewriteramazingstartrekmachinesweusenow-137dbstar-trek-dual-core5.jpg shaun
Sun prepared interesting material on the Colosse supercomputer
- Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qyCH2G8epo
- Interactive presentation: http://www.sun.com/ws/vid.jsp?wcwid=10B02221_01&size=880x600
- Promo sheet: http://www.sun.com/customers/servers/clumeq.xml
Ima nastly mexjican im roaming in your texas, lookin at yur datacentros, thinkning: OMNOMNOMNOMNOM!!!!1uno
do you actually fear that Mexico it's going to invade USA or something? Really? Or is that you need to fear something like all of you?
America land of the pussies!