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AOL: Outdoor Server Huts Are the Future

Posted by timothy on from the would-look-good-on-the-cover-of-2600 dept.

1sockchuck writes "While Facebook and Apple are investing in huge data cathedrals, AOL has decided to go in a different direction: a distributed network of rack-sized server huts that live outdoors. AOL is taking the concept for its unmanned data center and shrinking it into a 'micro data center.' AOL envisions a distributed network of these units, allowing it to quickly roll out new IT capacity for hyperlocal news sites and create its own content distribution network."

25 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. CBG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    envisions a distributed network of these units, allowing it to quickly roll out new IT capacity for hyperlocal news sites and create its own content distribution network

    Ahh someone's been visiting the Corporate Bullshit Generator LOL!

    1. Re:CBG by camperslo · · Score: 2

      What content is it AOL has that people want to see?

      Maybe they should find existing sites to put the servers.
      How about Pizza Huts? Help heat the pizza ovens.

    2. Re:CBG by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, you can. You obviously wouldn't use the servers as the sole heat source in a pizza oven, but you could use their waste heat to keep the oven warm, so that the mean heating element doesn't have to use as much energy to reach the operating temperature. Granted the savings would probably be minimal, but it can be done. But it probably would take a while to recoup the investment in actually putting it all together.

      There's a lot of energy-saving things involving heating and cooling that can be done that people don't bother with because the return on investment would probably be too long. For instance, everyone has a refrigerator in their house, which produces a fair amount of heat in cooling its interior (there's coils on the backside, for cooling the compressor). In the winter, this is no problem, since you want your house warm anyway, but in the summer this is counteracting your house's A/C, making it work harder to keep it cool inside. What if there were some way of diverting that heat to the outside of the house in the summer, but in cooler months keeping it inside? It could be done with some custom ducting, a fan, and temperature-controlled louvers. But you never see this because that's a lot of work, and therefore expense, when the gains are probably minimal.

      Similarly, clothes dryers produce a LOT of waste heat, but this is usually just ducted outside. My house actually has a diverter box in the ductwork so that in the wintertime, I can move the flap and let all the hot air blow into the house (through an additional screen to keep the lint down), which reduces my heating bills. Unfortunately most houses don't bother with this, though it'd probably have a much bigger effect than the refrigerator idea above.

      As energy costs rise, I imagine we'll be seeing a lot more energy-saving strategies like these.

    3. Re:CBG by KhabaLox · · Score: 2

      Corporate Bullshit Generator

      Bookmarked. I'm going to try to use a line from there in my PP presentation to Sales on Monday. Ahh, here we go:

      "Market-driven cost efficiencies influence our perspectives."

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un sig.
    4. Re:CBG by TheMiddleRoad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You must like it humid in the house.

    5. Re:CBG by OrigamiMarie · · Score: 2

      If you are running the dryer on natural gas, you need to think carefully about carbon monoxide before venting it indoors. Or set up a complicated heat exchange system.

    6. Re:CBG by codewarren · · Score: 3, Informative

      Your refrigerator idea won't save energy in the summer. The efficiency of the fridge is related to the temperature difference between the coils and the air around them. If they are exposed to a hot outdoors, the fridge will simply work harder. If you expose them to the cool indoors, the fridge gets a break at the expense of the house's A/C which has to pump the extra heat away.

      In other words, something has to overcome the temperature difference to push the heat outside. It's either the fridge or the fridge + A/C and in neither case are you going to see any savings.

    7. Re:CBG by error_logic · · Score: 3, Informative

      During the winter months (when the heating would be necessary), additional humidity is often beneficial. Air inside can get *dry* with the temperature difference's effect on relative humidity.

    8. Re:CBG by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Brevity is the essence of wit."

      I see what you

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:CBG by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Take a short drive to Phoenix. It's dry in the winter (it's dry all year, except during the "monsoon season" in the summer), and while not exactly "cold", it can be chilly enough to want a little bit of heat, and the small amount of humidity that dryer exhaust would add to the air isn't a problem, instead it's probably welcome.

    10. Re:CBG by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      If you still have soap in your clothes when you dry them, you're either using way too much soap (quite likely; lots of people make this mistake, thinking they need 4x as much detergent as they really do), or you need a new washer. The rinses (multiple) are supposed to get rid of all that. "Wash byproducts"? Like what? There shouldn't be anything going into the dryer except wet, clean clothing. The clothing material thing I might buy, but even there you should be using heat appropriate for the fabrics; unless it's all cotton, don't use high heat, turn it down to low or medium (another common mistake people make is using high heat all the time).

    11. Re:CBG by evilviper · · Score: 2

      In other words, something has to overcome the temperature difference to push the heat outside. It's either the fridge or the fridge + A/C and in neither case are you going to see any savings.

      This is nonsense. Your home A/C isn't 100% efficient, and the refrigerator's compressor motor generates its own waste heat (in addition to the heat it's pumping out) which can be vented to outside with no additional energy required.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    12. Re:CBG by jbengt · · Score: 2

      Your refrigerator idea won't save energy in the summer.

      No, unless you have a perfect reversible refrigeration cycle, you will save a little energy.
      You might be able to save a considerable amount of energy in the winter, though, by rejecting heat directly to the outdoors, or using "free" economizer cooling when (and if) the temperature outside is below the refrigerator temperature. Of course, if you're heating with electricity, anyway, it wouldn't really make a difference.
      An better energy saving idea, though kind of expensive, would be to use water-cooled heat pump systems using ground-coupled water loops for heating and cooling of the house, fridge, and domestic hot water.

  2. Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Their clients still live in huts, so it makes sense to move their servers there too..

  3. Lol by masternerdguy · · Score: 2

    As if AOL can tell us about the future.

    --
    To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
  4. Counting the minutes... by Bieeanda · · Score: 2

    ...until some scumbag with a sawzall realizes that there's expensive computer hardware inside those black boxes.

  5. Re:Google abuses forests by couchslug · · Score: 2

    "I can clearly see that they don't care about the environment."

    Citation fucking needed NOW.

    The tiny servers-in-a-can model is cute, (the stupid black paint job has to go, try that in AZ in August and you couldn't even open the door without burning your hand), but centralization makes for much easier operation and maintenance for large server farms.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  6. If There's Ever A Company To Trust by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 5, Funny

    If there's ever a company to trust when it comes to predicting the future, it's AOL. Why just three years ago they predicted they'd have to move away from dial-up since broadband would be the wave of the future and look at how right they were.

  7. Here's a citation about google and the environment by pem · · Score: 2

    http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2011/1220/Google-invests-94-million-in-California-solar-farms Oh, wait...

  8. Re:Why? by couchslug · · Score: 2

    "They are probably more interested in a datacenter in a shipping container."

    Indeed. ISO containers are cheap and you can send one to your site with everything you need AND have storage or workspace INSIDE the container protected from the weather.

    If your "AOL in a can" breaks in foul weather, then you need to COVER it to OPEN it.

    You don't need to pour a slab for ISOs as they are supported by the corner fittings. A railroad tie under each end is usually just fine.

    I use ISOs for personal shop buildings and storage, and have worked in and with them while deployed.

    ISO containers are available in small 10-foot configurations too.
    Generic example:

    http://www.shippingcontainertrader.com/johnads/6/Tmp0002F.jpg

    If you are going to pour a slab, USE all of the square footage. Pot four twist-locks in the slab, install ISO, and lock it down. Even a hurricane isn't likely to shift it. Alternately, bolt it down with common expansion anchors through welded-on tabs of your choice then tack weld the bolt heads to the tabs. It ain't leaving on its own.

    ISO containers don't have a proprietary form-factor container to deter upgrades either.

    I don't sell ISOs, but do have morbid nasty love for them.

    Sea Box website with MANY examples of container mods. Your local welding and fab shop can roll your own easily:

    http://www.seabox.com/

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  9. Re:Have they thought this through? by pem · · Score: 3, Funny

    Being picked up and carried off? (Kind of like an ATM, but for the data inside instead of the cash.)

  10. Security? by KhabaLox · · Score: 2

    Isn't one of the tenets of network security physically securing access to the servers? How would they prevent someone from tapping into the boxes and either sniffing traffic or directly stealing content?

    --
    Ceci n'est pas un sig.
  11. Bonanza! by RKBA · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is a bonanza for scrap metal dealers and the scroungers who steal things like lamp posts, wiring and plumbing from abandoned houses, etc., because the contents of one of these unmanned micro data centers must be worth lot more than a lamp post to scrap dealers.

    --
    9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
  12. If, and ONLY if... by Shag · · Score: 2

    ...they make each "hut" look like a Tardis.

    Then, we can talk.

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
  13. AOL: We hate our IT workers.... by Lumpy · · Score: 2

    Server huts... so you get to work outside when you work on these things. Rain, snow, 120 degree heat. No thanks.

    I worked long enough in the Cellular industry to be abused by working on these god-for-saken "huts" they think they invented... The Cellphone industry has had them cince the late 90's.. it's not new, they are not innovative. And they SUCK to work on.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.