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Seagoing Servers Hit the Rocks

Posted by timothy on from the flotsam-is-ones-jetsam-is-zeros dept.

1sockchuck writes "A plan to build data centers on ships is now defunct. Startup IDS, whose ambitions to convert cargo ships into server farms prompted debate on Slashdot in 2008 and 2010, is in bankruptcy. Google filed a patent for a water-based data center, but it's not clear that the company ever took the concept seriously, and has even spoofed the idea."

14 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like a reputable company. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Customer: So where are your servers located...
    Company: International Waters... Barge 12.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. upload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    how exactly can you have large bandwidth with no cables?

    1. Re:upload? by PaddyM · · Score: 5, Funny

      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a seaworthy station wagon filled with hard drives.

    2. Re:upload? by OzPeter · · Score: 2

      how exactly can you have large bandwidth with no cables?

      Sharks! With lasers strapped to their heads, and laser detectors as well!

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    3. Re:upload? by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Funny

      I would think A Flock of Seagulls could help with Telecommunication,
      but they do have a tendency to run...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    4. Re:upload? by slashmydots · · Score: 2

      You can get satellite or even point to point microwave connections in some cases that are extremely high bandwidth. It's the horrible response time that's the problem. I've seen connections that will send 10 megabits through at around a 700ms round trip delay. Ugh.

    5. Re:upload? by NalosLayor · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think this is an avenue for research. Perhaps, some day, someone will devise some sort of "under-sea" or possibly "sub-marine" waterproof telegraphic cable in order to electrgraphically connect two stationary points across a body of open water. I'd imagine you'd have to customize some sort of cable-laying vessel as well. Once this breakthough is achieved, we'll be able to transmit data from a ship to shore.

    6. Re:upload? by Tofof · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

      The last time I saw that line, I decided to actually look into it.

      In the 1970s, by which time the phrase was already in use, a typical station wagon would be something like an AMC Rebel. According to stats from Wikipedia, the Rebel has a cargo capacity of 91 cubic feet. For tape, the IBM 10.5" reel was the "defacto standard" from the 1950s "through the late 1980s". Assume 10.5"x10.5"x.5" i.e. 55.1 cubic-inch rectangular prisms as the tightest possible packing (which is optimistic, given that the tape itself is .5" not including the reels themselves, but the saying urges us to avoid undersetimation) 9-track tapes debuted in 1964, with densities of 800, 1600, or 6250 cpi corresponding to between 5 to 140 megabytes per standard 2400' tape. This gives us a capacity, then, of 2854 tapes per station wagon. At highest density (again, the phrase does urge not to underestimate) this corresponds to a whopping, in the mid-1970s at least, 390 gigabytes. I consider a trip from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to Norfolk, Virginia as a reasonable cross-country journey with computing-appropriate endpoints and a 55 mph 1970s speed limit. This is roughly 850 miles, managable in 15.5 hours with very quick stops for gas.
      This finally corresponds to a mid-1970s bandwidth of 390 gigabytes per 15.5 hours, or in more familiar units, 57 mbps (yes, bits not Bytes, as is typical for bandwidth units).

      The modern version would probably need to substitute an SUV for the station wagon. A 2012 Ford Explorer is listed at 81 cubic feet. Using common modern tapes, like jb/jx tapes, you could hold ~7000. In gen4 mode, these tapes hold 1.6 TB (yes, 4TB tapes exist but seem too extraordinary for this usage). At typical cross-country speed of 68 mph, the same trip would be 13 hours, padded by the same half-hour for gas the previous figure was.
      The modern version, then, works out to some 11 petabytes per 13 hours, or something like 1900 gbps. This works out to a full terabyte transferred every 4.2 seconds.

      Do not underestimate, indeed!

  3. They are where they wanted to be. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

    That is, in deep water.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  4. Better Idea by ab_iron · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think caves in Sultanate of Kinakuta would be a much better idea.

  5. Power plants yes, data centers no. by Animats · · Score: 2

    There's been some success with floating power plants. But those are built for developing countries, and they're installed along a shore. It's a way to move a power plant from where it was built to a destination location where construction is difficult. Building a power plant in a shipyard is convenient. A shipyard already has the equipment for moving and assembling very heavy components, and people who know how to use it.

    None of this applies to a data center.

  6. Next: Datacenters in Space by NicknamesAreStupid · · Score: 2

    After the billionaires mine asteroids for gold, they are going to stick giant datacenters in them. All this happens when Scotty gets the transporter back online.

  7. Good thing though by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's a good thing the plan didn't go through because I guarantee the RIAA and MPAA would have build stealth submarines and sunk it. You can do pretty much anything in international waters lol.

    1. Re:Good thing though by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

      History repeats: Offshore pirate radio used to be very big in the UK. The government eventually responded by passing a law saying that any unlicensed transmission that could be recieved in the UK was illegal, even if the transmitter was in international water and regardless of the registered nationality of the transmitting ship. This was of rather dubious legality, but no other country wished to make a fuss over something so small as a legal nitpicking when they were dealing with similar issues themselves. It did indeed come down to the government sending armed attack squads to board transmitter ships and arrest the operators. So it's happene before, don't think it wouldn't happen again.

      Amusingly, both the BBC (World Service) and US government (Voice of America) deliberatly broadcast unlicensed into countries where the government deems them to be operating illegally. North Korea, places like that where the only allowed media is the state propaganda service. Proving that one again, in international law, might does make right.