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Inside Las Vegas' Biggest Data Centre
twoheadedboy writes "Las Vegas data centres are just as opulent as the casinos which litter the vibrant city. SuperNAP is the biggest in all Las Vegas, with 400,000 square feet of servers using around 100 megawatts of power. There's some serious security too, comprised mostly of ex-US Marines who patrol the perimeter on foot and in Humvees, all armed with assault rifles. Private military contractors are needed in the IT world too, it seems. IT Pro got a look around this impressive DC."
It takes less energy to cool a hot place than to warm a cold place. (It's thermodynamics, I think.)
Vegas is also very pro-business and densely populated.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Due to its government contracts the security force (made up mostly of ex-marines armed with assault rifles) can requisition fuel wherever they find it locally in the event of a power outage???
Say, that's reassuring.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Come to think, I wonder if a DC is classified as commercial or industrial? I'm guessing it'd be industrial because of the size, but a DC could be commercial because of the locality restrictions (you want them sparsely covering everywhere - I think). I've got data on the one but not the other.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Speaking as somebody that has been inside the facility, the security can get a little bit of an "itchy trigger finger".
It's hard enough to do a job at the last notice, but having some beefed up ex-military guy from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. is not all that it is cracked up to be. They walk around all dressed in black with pistols and assault rifles. That part is not a joke at all, and this is inside the facility.
So when you are trying to take a server out of a rack and service it, or take equipment out, it makes it just a ohhh so fun fun day to have one of those hopped up alpha male psychopaths have one hand on their weapon and the other hand on the radio. Seriously? I am inside a locked down facility. Get your fucking hands off the assault rifles when you start talking to me. I'm a fucking IT guy.
All because shit is moving fast in my world and some desk monkey did not talk fast enough to another desk monkey in their company.
It sounds great in literature and brochures, but when you actually have to walk down aisles and deal with those guys it is another matter entirely. I would rather just be in another data center where there are not armed guards walking around every corner with live ammo.
Its actually easier to warm a cold place than warm a hot place. In a cold climate, you just add more computer equipment.
For every watt you put into computer equipment, that's a watt you have to burn cooling said equipment (when having to cool the equipment).
Okay...Supernap it is.
I dont see how that works, in this case heat (the scarce thing in the cold enviroment) is a waste product to be disposed of
but also vegas is surrounded by flat empty land, perfect when you want a giant metal shed and a fence
I suspect that the low humidity might make it easier to cool, but I could be wrong.
It takes less energy to cool a hot place than to warm a cold place.
I don't think that's the issue here. The need of cooling a hot place is a fact. The issue is, isn't easier (and more efficient) to cool a hot place in a cold environment than one in a cold environment.
And the answer is: if you're in a cold environment, you may only need to suck cold air from outside and pull the hot one out. If you're in a hot environment, you have to cool the air before the displacement take place.
if they didn't put a datacentre in the middle of a desert.
I would rather just be in another data center where there are not armed guards walking around every corner with live ammo.
Did you inspect that weapon? Its nearly a certainty that the chamber was empty and likely that the magazine in the weapon was also empty. Live rounds are probably in magazines in a pouch. Active duty Marines sometime carry their weapons in such a state. Why the empty magazine, closing the dust cover and inserting an empty magazine helps keep the weapon clean.
... it just a ohhh so fun fun day to have one of those hopped up alpha male psychopaths ...
I think this is the most telling part of your post. You seem have some phobias and prejudices.
"the security force is apparently empowered to requisition fuel wherever it finds it in the city.". I guess this is the same empowerment that allows the *government* to requisition fuel from wherever it finds it in any country...
I don't believe it. If there were that much IT in LV then there would be IT jobs. I haven't seen a single IT job in LV in years - have you?
Other reasons to build in Las Vegas:
Earthquake? No.
Flood? No.
Snow? Well, yes. Blizzard? No.
Severe Thunderstorms? Rarely.
Tornado? Very rarely.
Volcano? No.
Tsunami? No.
While you may be correct about the lucrative side of the business the article does mention that clients include government agencies, financial institutions, and quasi-fiancial companies like ebay (paypal). I think you are focussing too much on the local industry. Its a data center, clients do not need to be local. Think geographic diversity regarding offsite backups. Somebody in New York or San Francisco may think that Vegas makes a good secondary data site, something immune from a local NY or CA disaster.
This part of the story is actually true. (I worked there for a short while after the sun microsystems buyout by oracle was finalized and most of the grid/cloud business unit staff was cut) They have a very extensive network of dark fiber as well as on-premise peering available in their data centers with most of the tier 1 isp's in this country
There are several reasons for building in Las Vegas - -Electricity is very, very cheap and being consumed so steadily by so many entities that it's easy to look "green" in this environment because the datacenter electric consumption is dwarfed by the use of all of those mega casinos, hotels, attractions, etc by so much that the IT use just looks like a blip on the radar. -It really does require less energy to condition/cool air in the desert than it does in most of the rest of the country. This is actually for a couple of reasons 1.The facilities are effectively big caves .. they are several feet thick cement walls that are light colored on the outside. They are so well
insulated that the outdoor heat doesn't have a chance of making it inside.
2. The humidity in this area is naturally so low that no additional energy is required when cooling the air to dehumidify it. Imagine being in virginia or pennsylvania where the humidity is 60-80% outdoors. Half of that humidity has to be pulled from the air and siphoned off
3. they use strict hot/cold aisle separation where the whole facility becomes a plenum and duct system and the super-heated air is just ducted directly outside. The racks sit on cool cement floors and cold air pours directly into the front of the equipment and the air that runs through the equipment goes directly up through the roof duct system where it is contained and exhausted.
4. with the addition and application of simple evaporative cooling that is greatly accelerated in ultra arid climates you can save nearly 30% of the cost of using gas compression cooling only.
Well if you're operating heat pumps with a COP of 1, yes.
I would expect a little better than that, though. In fact I'm surprised at the boast that they get a COP of 4 (1/4 kW to cool each kW produced). Perhaps the outdoor temperature doesn't allow for much beyond that.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Half the time, ex-military also means ex-Kentucky trailer dweller.
As someone who has been responsible for the architecture, design and security of many of the IT products and services that you consume every single day of your life AND a U.S. Air force veteran I can tell you first hand that you are absolutely ignorant and know nothing of which you speak.
Air with more moisture in it holds more heat, which makes it harder to cool that air, but it also makes that air less capable of absorbing heat. However, with the current trend towards liquid cooling of servers to increase rack density, moist air produces a condensation risk. In general electronics don't like humidity...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Low humidity only makes things easier to cool when you have plentiful water. The problem with places with a lack of humidity is that they also tend to lack water. Las Vegas only exists because Hoover Dam is there to provide water. Southern California has far exceeded the population the land can actually support, and their water demands have been slowly draining Lake Mead over the past 20 years. Amusingly, nearly a third of the power it produces is used to run the pumps that are draining the river.
If Southern California doesn't curb their water consumption, or switch to desalinization, in the next few decades, Las Vegas will become a ghost town.
It'd probably make more sense doing geothermal during the day, and a straight air exchange at night, with the temp dropping low enough at night and the humidity being fairly non-existent in the desert that you don't need to condition the air (in the dark hours).
Its mostly an illusion because I can't think of anyone who has ever planned to assault a data center when it is easier and more effective to just hire a cracker and break in remotely. The need for that sort of security is limited at best. Physical access trumps everything, but good luck trying to steal data when it's striped across a tray of disks and that's assuming you know which storage array to get stuff from.
As far as people planting stuff in other people's gear, that's why there are cages with locked gates and rent-a-cops watching monitors.
Still it does make for good theater for the sorts of people who like to tour before they drop a few million on rack space and networking.
Their 2 largest customers, the casino transaction company and the US government both have a huge presence in the area.
Wynn resorts, for example, generates about $23 million/day on table games (slots are another $20 or so). That's 4 casinos out of the dozens that are on the strip.
Nellis Air Force Base is close to Las Vegas, as is Edwards AFB. I'm sure there is a lot of fiber between LV and the military bases, and it is a nice central location, with access to power, cheap labor (who wouldn't want to live in LV? /sarcasm), and data lines.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Is that it has consistent temperatures or reasonably so. Maybe not as I'm not an expert on Vegas. A couple of companies have built data centres in Ireland for this reason though and they can use the wind that comes naturally through for cooling to further reduce costs. Ireland has high humidity so I'm not sure how this plays into the whole humidity theory though. Mostly I'd say it is probably for tax breaks and cheap startup costs giving them a fast return on investment.
People think the desert is hot. As a born and raised in the Mojave desert "desert rat" I can say that is only true sometimes. Dry air heats quickly and cools quickly and winters are chilly - they even had snow on the strip last year. According to Switch (I have had equipment in the SuperNAP for well over 2 years) they only need to chill the outside air 30% of the year. Then you switch to evaporative. But they are able to run air-cooled as well - they don't need water to keep things cool, it just costs more in power.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
There is a certain theatrical element to all aspects of the SuperNAP - Switch doesn't make that a secret. I recall a tour when someone said, "Why do we have the lights set up like that? 'Cause it looks cool." As a geek, you gotta respect that. And the touch of theater is pretty nice when you meet a client in Vegas and take them on a tour.
Just because there is a theatrical element does not mean that they are not physically secure. Having toured facilities (some hosting some pretty well-known sites) where the "security" is basically a bored-looking half-asleep receptionist at the door I can say that it is refreshing to be in a facility with a well-staffed and alert security crew.
But I've yet to hear of any data-center being breached or disrupted by a physical attack on the facility so as a customer, I'm far more interested in the "availability" part of the security triad. As such, the dual independent power supplies to our cabinets (with a third bus available to cross-over if one bus is down) are one of the things that keep me happy.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I'm fortunate to be an early customer - it's only 1/5 mile round-trip to use the restroom. Parking and the loading-dock are farther. I've walked as much as 60-miles in a week traveling to Vegas. Much is due to schleps in the airports and taking walks after work but I'd estimate that back and forth between the cabinets, car, restroom, break-room and loading-dock accounts for 25-30% of my walking.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I know people like to be culturally diverse and all, but if it is in American English, it's spelled CENTER!
Las Vegas is not warm year round, in fact the average temperature is under 70f 5 months out of the year.
It often floods in Las Vegas when it rains. In fact flash flood warnings are quite common.
Despite the presence of the Hoover Dam hydroelectric facility in Nevada, almost all of that output goes to California, so the public grid in Las Vegas derives 60% of it supply from natural gas-fuelled power plants.
That is a lot of resources to have on the power grid. Why they don't build a Solar One style power generator for themselves boggles my mind.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I worked at Oracle's large (at the time) flagship datacenter in Texas. The guards there were all armed inside of the building, which was protected by embassy-grade security. I only lasted a few months because the environment was so horribly repressive. I did *not* appreciate having my eye scanned or feeling like I was being watched (by armed guards) all of the day.
Thank goodness I found better. :-)
If you are indeed as magnificent as you claim to be, you would know that appealing to authority without supplying even a shred of verifiable proof isnt exactly a good way to lend credibility to your statements.
Not to say i agree with the GPs assesment of ex-military guys in america (i dont know any at all, so i dont have much of a clue about them), but your internet tough guy style rebuttal is actually more ridiculous.
As someone responsible for the design, architecture and reliability of many of the laws of physics that you rely on every single day of your life AND an honorary member of the penthouse super secret "i had sex in space" club, i can tell you first hand that you're a tool.
People, what a bunch of bastards
Do they do the disk to disk backups to a semi-trailer or something and drive the entire trailer to the second equally impressive sit each day? I can only imagine how much a site this big costs, considering you would need an identical one hundreds of miles away for disaster recovery. I would love to see an article just on their backup methods alone. Designing a custom backup semi would be amazing.
I live in Vegas and would at least like to comment on a couple of items:
Power in Vegas by Nevada Power (published data) is approximately 23% coal, 67 % Natural Gas, 4% Hydroelectric, 3.8% Geothermal, 0.85% Nuclear, and 0.5 % solar per their generation stats. Nevada Power generate 68% of their power and they buy the rest. Solar is available and it does make sense, but the republican politicians and killing the projects. Nevada Solar One (http://www.acciona-na.com/About-Us/Our-Projects/U-S-/Nevada-Solar-One) works 24/7 and produces 64 MW annually not far from Boulder City and since it uses concentrating solar and salt for thermal production of electricity. Similar solar facilities were planned north of Vegas along with the necessary transmission lines which would also connect the two major U.S. electric grads. Current plans are still on hold (via politics again). While solar energy could be a major source of revenue (along with current mining and tourism industries) for Nevada, solar and transmission lines are currently viewed as a boondoggle. An area of solar approximately 100 miles on a side devoted to solar could power ALL of the U.S. electricity needs using current technology.
I have water concerns about the facility, when using evaporative cooling the DC is using a lot of water lost to evaporation. I suspect 1-2 million gallons per day as an educated "guess". For comparison, a typical golf course minimally uses a million gallons of water per day. While I worked in Arizona (land development) designing master planned communities as an engineer, the water used for golf courses would be reclaimed and/or non potable water. In Nevada, we try to return (after processing) water to the Colorado River to account for a draw that exceeds our allotment. While someone can argue whether living in Las Vegas does not make sense environmentally, my current house (nothing special) uses less electricity, water, and natural gas than anywhere I have previously lived (MI, WA, WV, & AZ).
If you stand on Hover Dam or the Bypass Bridge, you will see plenty of water. Right now Lake Mead water level is rising and regardless of rise or fall a certain minimum flow is regulated to pass downstream of the dam. Most of the water is used for agricultural purposes, none reaches the Gulf of Mexico except in unusual circumstances. Not all of water (there is a lot) is used wisely--for example cotton is not a water wise crop to grow in the California desert. Better decisions could be made with the water.
As for the Data Center in Vegas, I was very supportive until I read about the evaporative cooling. Now I'm suspicious that it not water wise thinking. At my current household consumption rate of 70k gallons per year, and assuming the Data Center is using over a million gallons per day for evaporative cooling (when used), it's the equivalent household water use of 14 years in one day. But wait--at least 50% of my household water goes back into the Colorado River verses evaporation. So, each day of their evaporative cooling is equivalent to 28 years of household water use. Converting to household to an estimate of 200 gallons per day, their million gallon per day use is equivalent to the use of 5,000 households or 10,000 households assuming half their water flows back (though the sewer system) to the Colorado.
Several poor decisions in industry can add up quickly in the desert.