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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."

4 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 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.

  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. 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.