AOL: Outdoor Server Huts Are the Future

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."

Comments

CBG

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:CBG

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:CBG

[TheMiddleRoad]

You must like it humid in the house.

Re:CBG

[codewarren]

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.

Re:CBG

[error_logic]

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.

Re:CBG

[drinkypoo]

"Brevity is the essence of wit."

I see what you

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

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

If There's Ever A Company To Trust

[l0ungeb0y]

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.

Re:Have they thought this through?

[pem]

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

Bonanza!

[RKBA]

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.