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IBM Uses Roomba Robots To Plot Data Center Heat

Posted by samzenpus on from the temp-bots dept.

judgecorp writes "IBM is using robots based on iRobot Create, a customizable version of the Roomba vacuum cleaner, to measure temperature and humidity in data centers. The robot looks for cold zones (where cold air may be going to waste instead of being directed to the servers) and hotspots (where the air circulation may be breaking down. IBM is putting the robots to commercial use at partners — while EMC is at an early stage on a strikingly similar project."

36 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Roomba proves it by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Funny

    Roomba proves that robots can revolutionize domestic cat transportation.

    Now they just need to provide a way for the cat to steer the darned thing and provide a more comfortable surface for the cat to sit on.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    1. Re:Roomba proves it by Mystakaphoros · · Score: 4, Funny

      Roomba proves that robots can revolutionize domestic cat transportation. Now they just need to provide a way for the cat to steer the darned thing and provide a more comfortable surface for the cat to sit on.

      Allowing cats to steer robots is a sure fire way to doom us all.

  2. Temperature probes are pretty cheap by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder how big a data center has to be before this is cheaper than just putting in a lot of temperature probes.

    1. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by spamchang · · Score: 1

      It's probably the integration of the temp probes (and physical nature of temp probes) that gets to be a hassle. I mean, you need a separate probe for each point...so you need some way to daisy chain that data before you end up with a trunk-sized batch of insulated metal wire spaghetti.

    2. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by spamchang · · Score: 2

      But having said that, you only get the air temp on the floor. This does you no good w.r.t. 3D air flows where you could have bad heat traps above ground (hot air rises, yo).

    3. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

      You can hang probes into racks. I do this already.

      I just can't imagine that the roomba cost is much cheaper than the probes and their monitoring device, until you have a lot of them.

      Pulling lots of cable is easy, already going to be doing that in a datacenter. Monitoring is dead easy, these things are built for that and nagios/$MONITORING_SOFTWARE_YOU_LIKE can alert as needed.

    4. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      You can move the roomba data center to data center though as a fleet. With temperature probes you have to factor in the labor cost as well in installing them and configuring the reporting software.

    5. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by PRMan · · Score: 2

      But the Roomba's guarantee a wire-free floor and that all the tiles are in place... :)

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    6. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by camperdave · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is a temp censor one who only blocks out offensive material for a short time?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    7. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Cool! Flying Roombas are coming soon!

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    8. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      But having said that, you only get the air temp on the floor. This does you no good w.r.t. 3D air flows where you could have bad heat traps above ground (hot air rises, yo).

      How do you do it right now? I mean, if you only have one probe, it can only probe the location.

      Oh right, you use multiple probes. Guess what? Roomba can have multiple probes as well - like putting them up on a pole and having and getting the temperature vs. height.

      The only real difference is that Roomba can only get current temperature where it's at - everywhere else is historical temperature.

    9. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

      Is a temp censor one who only blocks out offensive material for a short time?

      I was thinking you could just censor heat and thereby save a bundle in cooling costs...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    10. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      How would an IR camera pointing up be able to tell you the vertical position of a hot or cold spot? Wouldn't it just register the average temperature of the column?*

      *please note these are not rhetorical questions designed to belittle your idea. I worry I have to point this out.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    11. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by ph0rk · · Score: 1

      So, I haven't been in an IBM content hosting server room in around 13 years, but I think you far underestimate how large they can be.

      --
      semantics are everything!
    12. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by Molochi · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't using a temp censor make the datacenter all smokey and add heat to it?

      --
      "The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
    13. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

      How big? IBM big.

    14. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Imagine you had a couple hundred thousand square foot in a large datacenter. Now imagine how many probes you need.

    15. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Coming soon: quadcopters with temperature probes.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    16. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

      You can get i2c digital temperature sensors which lets you put a whole mess on a single bus. But... if you can put 64 of them on an 8' pole and run it around on a Roomba, you can create a 3D temperature map. You can even get all crazy and have 3D grid of sensors on the Roomba and review the impact of air disruption as you move around!

    17. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by Flere+Imsaho · · Score: 1

      But this idea is cooler!

      --
      It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
    18. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Just add a pile of Dallas DS18B20 1-wire sensors.

      But if you want to measure other things too, or want a method which doesn't require much effort to apply then the Roomba way is interesting since you can just set it up in the area you want to monitor in a few minutes, leave it for a week and then come back to a well-swept room with a decent amount of data.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    19. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by swb · · Score: 1

      I think the principal value of fixed probes over these is that you get a picture of the entire data center's heating and cooling environment at once.

      It's a lot easier to forecast the weather if you have N weather stations with simultaneous reporting than one guy driving around taking measurements.

      I would imagine a real-time whole-datacenter heat map could be used along with automatic HVAC management to allow colder sections to warm and cool warmer sections with less overall power than a more manual fixed temperature system.

      The robot idea I think is worthwhile as an adjunct, sanity checking existing sensors and possibly even providing real-time video and audio monitoring.

    20. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      I wonder how big a data center has to be before this is cheaper than just putting in a lot of temperature probes.

      I would estimate for any data center larger than zero square feet it would be two orders of magnitude cheaper to put in temperature probes.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    21. Re:Temperature probes are pretty cheap by canturk · · Score: 1

      There are a lot of great answers related to this post, and maybe I can share a bit of first-hand info on this as well--I am one of the folks behind this robotic data center monitoring project, and it is nice to see some of the key challenges and opportunities highlighted in the comments. We use static sensors as well for data centers, and there is trade off among the temporal/spatial density you get with static sensors, the cost of deployment, maintenance and measurement reliability. The robot can give you a full body scan of the data center by sampling at every tile (at several verticals), however, it obviously cannot be everywhere at once. Then, if you decide for finer spatial/temporal granularity, you can think of deploying static sensor based solutions. There are many cool technologies that also help with this approach. Some challenges with sensors are, the cost, maintenance and measurement reliability as the scales go up. One important point to make with the robot is, you can set it down and let it run, w/o any prior installation, as it discovers the data center layout and performs the measurements as it moves along, by navigating the tile structure.

  3. I for one welcome our new robot.... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ahhh, nevermind.. .anyone with a new robot meme? Bite my shiny metal.....

    1. Re:I for one welcome our new robot.... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

      and then they started attacking humans. Soon, FloorNet had us on the run. That's when we built a time machine to send someone back to kill the inventor of the Roomba.

      Well iRobot, the company that makes Roomba, does make most of its money from defense contracts.

  4. you forgot the ) by chichilalescu · · Score: 1

    you can keep mine, and here are some more so you have them on hand )))

    --
    new sig
    1. Re:you forgot the ) by Another,+completely · · Score: 1

      LISP: Lots of Incredibly Silly Parentheses.

  5. Dammit! I said by bogidu · · Score: 1

    Laser Beams!

  6. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    In other news, IBM just fired 1000 janitors. When asked why, they stated "there was just no roomba for them."

    1. Re:In other news by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      That sucked.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  7. Imagine harder by oGMo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why can't you imagine this? One of these costs $130, off-the-shelf. They have eleven total, all around the world, which is $1430, off-the-shelf. Add in some more for the sensor setup etc ... maybe even double or triple it, if you're feeling generous. I imagine one guy can write a program that takes care of all of these. How much do your rack probes per data center cost? How much to install all of them? How much does the monitoring device cost?

    Then, how long and how many people does it take to test them all regularly after they're installed? And how hard are they to install on an existing data center, vs dropping one of these on the floor, slapping some RFID stickers around, and walking away?

    I imagine this is a trial run and IBM could probably come up with an even cheaper bulk solution if they need to. But it sure sounds like a lot less overall .. just the installation and maintenance probably makes it worth it, even if the price is more (which I doubt).

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

  8. Nice computer you've got there by scdeimos · · Score: 1

    I see the computer sitting on top of the Roomba in the photo is an Acer. What a shame IBM sold all of its consumer compute equipment off to Lenovo.

  9. Re:Did they not already know? by Another,+completely · · Score: 1

    Did they not already know where the heat comes from in a data center?

    No. And cooling what doesn't need it is expensive.

    Generally, where the exhaust goes gets hot, and where the intakes are doesn't get so hot, but beyond that there are a lot of variables. If you can put the right amount of cooling in the right place, you can save energy and maybe even increase the life expectancy of your chillers.

  10. Trending? by tompaulco · · Score: 1

    Does IBM not care about trending? If a certain area over the last five to minutes has started getting warmer, it is time to direct air over there. Unfortunately, a roomba can't make it around the whole data center to collect this kind of data every minute or every 30 seconds, so you can't collect trending data.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  11. Re:Data rate by canturk · · Score: 1

    The robot makes use of the tiled raised floor of the data center and navigates tile-by-tile during initial layout discovery. It uses a frontier-based navigation, instead of the standard navigation from the device. It completes a fuil run once there is no visitable tiles left. You can find some of the details on the speed, which are not bad, from the ICRA and the ICAC papers.