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Data Center Building Boom In Silicon Valley
1sockchuck writes "Data center developers are building like mad in Silicon Valley, with seven active projects in Santa Clara alone. The building boom includes the resumption of several stalled projects that prompted concerns of a shortage of wholesale data center space in the Valley. The flurry of construction activity is different from the overbuilding during the dot-com boom, which was characterized by too much funding and too few customers. This time, industry experts say, the end of a funding drought has created a situation in which construction is struggling to stay ahead of demand from companies like Facebook — which just scarfed up an entire new data center in Santa Clara."
Still I agree that this rising demand on the tail of the recession is a good sign, for the valley in particular.
... and how far from a fault line? Seems about one of the dumbest place to build one to me as well.
Several former office-space buildings are being converted to data centers.
In a regular commute from West San Jose to the Google-plex area in Mountain View I have seen these changes. An existing office building has its windows removed/covered and then a sign goes up showing data center space available or the name of a data warehousing company.
This conversion seems less wasteful as far as materials, but I am not sure how using an existing building compares to building a data-center-specific one for long-term energy efficiencies.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
Don't know if you've ever taken a look outside a data center, but they often have multiple, high-voltage power feed dead-end at the building. At my current colo, the excellent Herakles data center in Sacramento, CA, they are literally located directly under a major set of power lines.
So you take some office building that was burning perhaps a couple hundred watts per 100 SqFt during mid-day, and colocate 42U racks within, raising energy density from maybe 200 watts/100 SqFT to a few thousand. To give some idea, I personally oversee about 3,000 watts in a single 1U rack at my colo, well over 200 cores, and many terabytes of data. And that's in a single 1U rack, maybe 24" wide and 36" deep, with some allowance for aisleway... and my situation isn't even mildly unusual.
We're not talking 3,000 watts capacity, we're talking 3,000 watts 24x7 continuous draw, of redundant, backed-up power - the most expensive kind. Whole houses usually don't draw this much. And this is a *single* 42U rack.
This is feasible? That's a *lot* of power...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Just out of curiousity, what sort of job experience, schooling, certification etc. would they be looking for for jobs at these data centers?
We're not talking 3,000 watts capacity, we're talking 3,000 watts 24x7 continuous draw, of redundant, backed-up power - the most expensive kind. Whole houses usually don't draw this much. And this is a *single* 42U rack.
This is feasible? That's a *lot* of power...
What are you on about? 3kW is nothing and many 2 story houses running an airconditioner run 5 times that! Sure it's not backed up and unless then owner is rich or insane it's not running 24x7 so you may have some point on expense, but to put things in perspective 1000W vacuum cleaners are relatively weak. Again I'm not suggesting these are run 24x7. But we're not talking the power out put of the sun at 30 paces when we're talking 3kW.
Similarly "many terabytes" is unimpressive when I can get 2TB drives for well under $200 and 200 cores ain't so impressive when a standard mid range desktop comes with 4 these days.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"Zero company loyalty"
Well most ignorant investors, well invest in talent. But honestly I think this is very intuitive... I have an MBA and decided that was not for me. (now a math / programming, but judge all you want idc) you nailed the business perspective my friend and well, I will still invest. But in the same sense, because I must be the devil's advocate: you can never know the market. Name a better place? Where else will you find talent on demand, I'm sure there is a place, but add infrastructure into the equation. Hey help me fellow slashers of info, is there really a better place for this to be situated, we need talent and little infrastructure investment? (the "we" is used loosely) I am not be arbitrary here, just asking for where would be better?
Just a humble opinion, don't judge...
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Exactly, I think somewhere on the east coast, Atlanta especially, NYC or Chicago would be best as far as latency to users is concerned.
Put a data center in Oklahoma, and you'll find some nice cheap IT workers, who have very little idea what they are doing.
I think you will find that there are plenty of well-educated, intelligent IT workers in Oklahoma who choose to be here because they are willing to trade off 25% lower salaries for being able to buy a home for less than 1/4 what it costs in larger markets. Plus Oklahoma City was voted by Forbes as the most recession proof city.
I enjoy living in Oklahoma. Relatively balmy winters, a little hot in the summer, but not unbearably so, and I live in a 15 year old 3 story 5,000 square foot house on an acre of land within 7 miles of the center of Oklahoma City. I purchased it for only $255,000. Oh, and the economy is not tanking here. My house is worth over 50% more than when I bought it 8 years ago.
There are several thriving data centers here in Oklahoma City. Our company was entertaining data centers in the LA area and Atlanta, and we actually had one in Dallas, but it turned out to be much better for our pocketbook, uptime and customer support to have it in Oklahoma City.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.