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Opera Plans Containerized Data Center In Iceland

Posted by timothy on from the not-enough-virgins-to-satisfy-the-gods dept.

1sockchuck writes "Iceland's supply of renewable power has gained a high-profile international data center customer. Web browser developer Opera Software was announced today as the first customer of the Thor Data Center, which will house Opera's servers in data center containers that can use fresh air cooling, rather than chillers (a strategy also used by Google). The Thor Data Center is located in Hafnarfjorour, to the west of Iceland's ash-spewing volcano. Iceland's data center operators insist their location represents no operational risk from volcanic activity."

35 comments

  1. Sounds to be nice location by XnR'rn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Good for them. Renewable energy. Lower cooling bills.

    I wonder how large the datacenter needs to be to have a significant ecological impact?

    1. Re:Sounds to be nice location by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      They can use rivers to both power the machines and to cool them. The nature probably won't even notice, especially since the energy of the water gets back into water.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Sounds to be nice location by Korin43 · · Score: 1

      Heating up rivers does have an effect though. I'd guess they've looked into it already, but you can completely mess up ecosystems by messing with rivers.

    3. Re:Sounds to be nice location by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As I wrote, there is such a thing as a law of conservation of energy. If you heat the water with the waste thermal energy from circuits powered by the potential energy of the same water, how does that differ from letting the water simply fall down from mountains and heat up in the process, in terms of the temperature rise?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Sounds to be nice location by gsnedders · · Score: 1

      In terms of global temperature rise, none. In terms of the eco-system within the river itself, and what fish and other animals can live off it given a temperature rise, there's a lot of difference.

    5. Re:Sounds to be nice location by sznupi · · Score: 1

      What temperature rise? The energy that "heats" the river...came from the river.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    6. Re:Sounds to be nice location by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      You fail physics 101.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Thor Data Center by Elektroschock · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Thor is a pagan name, how will Christians respond to their offer?

    Miniature replicas of Mjöllnir, the weapon of Thor, became a defiant symbol of Norse paganism.

    What if the Hulk would come and take the data from Thor.

    1. Re:Thor Data Center by maxume · · Score: 1

      I imagine they will set it on fire.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    2. Re:Thor Data Center by sznupi · · Score: 1

      With the recent story of droids making streets in Austria safer (while I can see that "baptising" them & cars at my place simply doesn't work) or, closer to Iceland, some practical jokes with one volcano...it becomes more and more clear which gods are the true ones anyway. And will not ignore forgetting them for much longer.

      Why only now, you ask? Well, they might work on different timescales.

      Or a case of really bad hangover.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  3. Sbelling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The location isn't spelled "Hafnarfjorour", it's "Hafnarfjörður".

    Sheesh! How can you get a simple thing so wrong?

    1. Re:Sbelling by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 1

      The location isn't spelled "Hafnarfjorour", it's "Hafnarfjörður".

      Sheesh! How can you get a simple thing so wrong?

      Yes it is! I live in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales. For some strange reason visitors keep spelling the name wrong.... wierd isn't it?

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
  4. Iceland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All the modern things, like high-profile international data centers and such,
    have always existed..

  5. fps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like a great opportunity for a multiplayer map in killzone 3

  6. 404 by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    We're sorry. Lava flows have taken away this object.

    --
    NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    1. Re:404 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      indeed, and with all that volcanic activity going on, how long would it be until iceland is no longer cold?

  7. Svavar Kjarrval by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The town's correct spelling is Hafnarfjörður
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnarfj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur

    1. Re:Svavar Kjarrval by Kynde · · Score: 3, Funny

      The town's correct spelling is Hafnarfjörður
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnarfj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur

      Hafnarfjörður and Hafnarfj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur look pretty much the same to me.

      --
      1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
    2. Re:Svavar Kjarrval by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Hafnarfjörður and Hafnarfj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur look pretty much the same to me.

      Only if you're trained in reading Norse runes, apparently. I'm not.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  8. Why not? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just make sure you have good dust filters.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  9. ash? by john_uy · · Score: 1

    how about if winds blow the ash to the site?

    --
    Live your life each day as if it was your last.
    1. Re:ash? by doctormetal · · Score: 4, Funny

      Then they just call it ash cloud computing.

    2. Re:ash? by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      Then any jet engines located inside the data center will suffer damage. I don't believe jet engines are a common server component but I'm not in the business.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    3. Re:ash? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Not really a problem in Hafnarfjörður. Prevailing winds are from the west-south-west and Hafnarfjörður is west-north-west from Eyjafjallajökull.

      For those looking for Hafnarfjörður on a map, its a suburb south of Reykjavik (dons asbest suit).

  10. Obvious coverup is obvious. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Obviously a cover-up for their secret underground volcano-lair. Cue the sharks and LASER beams.Soon they'll be holding the world ransom for a hundred billion dollars.

  11. They don't produce much geo energy really by flyingfsck · · Score: 1, Interesting

    A few other countries, including the mean old USA, produce much more geothermal energy than Iceland. Iceland has very few people - only some 300,000 - about the size of a largish town anywhere else in the world.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    1. Re:They don't produce much geo energy really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A few other countries, including the mean old USA, produce much more geothermal energy than Iceland.

      Iceland doesn't produce as much geothermal energy as the USA and doesn't produce hot Scandinavian chicks like Sweden so what's the point of Iceland anyway?

    2. Re:They don't produce much geo energy really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well they don't burn coals, don't have nuclear reactors, no wind farms or solar panels... where is all their electricity coming from?

      I think per capita they rely on much more geo energy than the USA.

    3. Re:They don't produce much geo energy really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Of course Iceland produces less geothermal energy than the US. It's a lot smaller isn't it?
      But Iceland covers 95% of its energy needs with geothermal power (the rest is water power).
      And it has potential to produce as much geothermal energy as needed; in some places all you have to do is dig down a few feet and you have direct access to boiling lava.

    4. Re:They don't produce much geo energy really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 irrelevant

  12. Sun invented that some time ago: Blackbox by IYagami · · Score: 1

    More info at

    http://www.sun.com/service/sunmd/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Modular_Datacenter

    Sun Modular Datacenter (Sun MD, known in the prototype phase as Project Blackbox) is a portable data center built into a standard 20-foot intermodal container (shipping container) manufactured and marketed by Sun Microsystems. An external chiller and power are required for the operation of a Sun MD. A data center of up to 280 servers can be rapidly deployed by shipping the container in a regular way to locations that might not be suitable for a building or another structure, and connecting it to the required infrastructure.[1] Sun Microsystems states that the system can made operational for 1/100th of the cost of building a traditional data center

    1. Re:Sun invented that some time ago: Blackbox by M3lf.cz · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the sun site has been already Oracl0vn3d: the videos and gallery are not working...

    2. Re:Sun invented that some time ago: Blackbox by 1sockchuck · · Score: 1

      Except that by the time Sun "invented" the Blackbox, Google had already secretly built an entire data center filled with data center containers. And applied for the patent on the concept, which it got.

  13. Re:ash safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The volcano is over there, no, more to the right, see?

    It doesn't effect us at all, as the laws of plate tectonics.

    See, the magma burning under the surface of that other town isn't anywhere near our town. Why, they are MILES away!. It's entirely safe to rely on our site for all your business. And besides, there have never been two volcanoes in the same area.

  14. Tanel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is big difference between ð and o. ð sounds like th in "they".

    I'm not the