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Microsoft Puts Datacenter In a Barn
aesoteric writes "Microsoft has announced that it will open a new datacenter in Washington State housed in a 'modern' barn-like structure that is 'virtually transparent to ambient outdoor conditions'. It was not the first time Microsoft had toyed with the idea of a datacenter without walls. In September 2008, it successfully ran a stack of HP servers in a tent for seven months, apparently with no failures."
In our datacenters (I work for a major IT company) we've actually done some research on running data centers at higher temperatures overall. The funny thing that came out of this...in the attempt to figure out where the magical "65 degrees" requirement came from, we had to do a lot of digging. It turns out that the requirement came from old APC UPS systems, which mandated that environmental temperature. We're discovering that data centers can be run WAY warmer than that with no ill effect, provided you still have good airflow.
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Yep, for them technology reduces the cost per compute unit fast enough that the fact that they wear out faster is inconsequential and losing any given node is meaningless so a slightly higher failure rate is completely acceptable. It's the same reason Google can run with SATA drives without RAID, they take care of those concerns at a higher level. For those of us using software without builtin failover we can't really do this. Though if VMWare FT comes a bit farther it might be possible soon (though I'd still want my storage in a conditioned space even if the hosts weren't).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Data Center Knowledge has a photo feature with a bunch of images of the facility in Quincy and the container modules being assembled. You can see all the servers they pack into them.
Completely True.
I live in the Seattle area, and have a sump pump and dehumidifier in the basement. The dehumidifier has to run year round, and uses twice the energy in a day that the air conditioning uses in 5 days. Granted, the dehumidifier is about 25 years old, and the air conditioning is only 4 years old. But they have about the same volume of air to modify the composition of.
Western Washington is a really beautiful part of the country. But I have to admit, it's the least friendly place to any size of businesses. High sales tax (up to 9.6% depending on county/city) high cost of living etc. But I gotta say I love it here.
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you