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Is Google Building a Floating Data Center In San Francisco Bay?
snydeq writes "CNET's Daniel Terdiman investigates an oversize secret project Google is constructing on San Francisco's Treasure Island, which according to one expert may be a sea-faring data center. 'Something big and mysterious is rising from a floating barge at the end of Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay. And Google's fingerprints are all over it,' Terdiman writes. 'Whether the structure is in fact a floating data center is hard to say for sure, of course, since Google's not talking. But Google, understandably, has a history of putting data centers in places with cheap cooling, as well as undertaking odd and unexpected projects like trying to bring Internet access to developing nations via balloons and blimps.'"
A giant cage to trap Cthulhu for their Japanese R&D branch. Google Tentacle; the perfect accessory for Google Glass.
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Something big and mysterious is rising from a floating barge at the end of Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay. And Google's fingerprints are all over it,'
It's hardly a secret guys. They were granted a patent on sea-based data centers... in 2009. They want to build a sea-water based data center, and given the mild seasons of California and abundance of internet peering points, this is the logical place to start.
The thing is, sea water isn't exactly computer-friendly... so they probably aren't going to get it on the first go. But the water a hundred feet down in the ocean is actually pretty cool. This makes sense... it all comes down to materials selection. Salt water is highly corrosive and they'll need something that can handle hoovering up large jelly fish and such without dying.
All in all, an interesting, and definately not very secret, project.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Lee shore with high winds
They'll have to sail it around the horn or teleport it because everyone knows they only place to put a floating data centre is at the centre of the Bermuda triangle so that it can take advantage of all the free energy from the astral vortex.
as well as undertaking odd and unexpected projects like trying to bring Internet access to developing nations via balloons and blimps.
In this case they're trying to bring internet access to pirates.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
... Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered "no"
I just can't see how an underwater data centre could be more economical than a normal one on land. Maybe they're experimenting with some new offshore cooling system, but a whole data centre? No.
Metal Gear?
There is another barge in the harbor in Portland, Maine http://www.pressherald.com/news/Myserty_Portland_barge_and_San_Francisco_barge_appear_linked_.html
functions perfectly as a front for You Know What.
There's trade in them data, you know.
Apple going to build a fancy Spaceship? Fine, Google will just build a goddam giant undersea fortress!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How can they get a patent on this? Wasn't pretty much the same thing done in Snow Crash, albeit for a different reason?
Obviously, they are battle hardening, in order to protect our data from the NSA.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Maybe they are planning on taking it out into international waters...
2. Deliver all ads from those servers.
3. Evade taxes in every jurisdiction by declaring that all ad revenue is generated in FloatingAdServer1 through FloatingAdServer14.
4. Profit!
It's only Google planning for another epic Holiday Party
Even with Steve Jobs showing up at city council, permits still might sink Apple's mothership. And if they register it in Lyberia and moor it in Mexico for a while they might escape property taxes too.
Pretty much the same, on a floating barge here in Portland. Just read an article about it the paper (dead tree version). It's pretty clearly tied to google, that's clear. Also, the registrations of these two barges were a three letter designation and then 0010 and 0011 so there's probably at least one more out there (0001) somewhere and quite possibly at 0000 too.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
The Apple mothership building was approved last September.
I would think that rejecting lots of waste heat into San Francisco Bay would require an Environmental Impact Report, as well as approval from the Coastal Commission and probably other government checks. IANALaywer or expert on these things; but just follow the news on things like the remodels of piers in San Francisco and other things that touch the water. If Google somehow manages to be "special" on something like that, well... EVIL!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The government's "Stop Building Things" Committee and "No More Jobs Here" Department haven't confiscated it yet?
maybe they will change their name to Gurgle
Although the the heat from some servers would make zero difference given that the ocean currents mix with the entire Pacific Ocean, this is California. Specifically, San Francisco. Last I heard, you need a permit to urinate in SF because the odor could effect air quality and if you can get a piss permit it takes a few years.
heh heh, heh heh, heh heh!
I say I say I say, how does a floating data center connect to the internet?
Pier-to-pier networking!
But seriously, what bandwidth and latency can you expect from something out in the ocean, unless they drag a wodge of fibres with them or tap into something on the seabed...
According to the US ship registration database (go to http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/CoastGuard/VesselByName.html and search for BAL0), there are four similar barges, with the convenient names:
BAL0001
BAL0010
BAL0011
BAL0100
Looks like there's a pattern there, and it does scream Google...
see sacrifice rods
Better to submerge the datacentre. When it's firmly anchored to the seabed it can't move - but it still has all the seawater around it for cooling. You'd probably need something like Stromberg's setup (from 007: The Spy Who Loved Me) in reality, to get peope to & from it.
In addition it has the advantage that not being in any one country's territotial waters, the tax situation could be very beneficial.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Microsoft set up some time ago a submarine fleet, whose purpose is now clear: they want to torpedo Google's fleet!
How can you get a patent on something like this?
Can I just go through the patent book and apply for patents with "sea based" prefixing everything in it? What about "land based"? Or I guess if you were very forward thinking you might want to go for "moon based" .....
Containerized servers are old hat, and they don't make a lot of sense under normal conditions. Mobility and redeployment really need to be important goals to justify the compromises.
Containers are roughly 8x8x40, so naively could contain 80x 54u racks, which means up to 2 MW/container. In reality, density probably wouldn't be nearly that high, but probably the better part of 1 MW. Water cooling with aquasar-type heatsinks would be an obvious implementation. The barge looks like a 3x3x2 prism of these containers, so will likely want around 20 MW. My first guess about cooling would just be to make the whole hull into a heat-exchanger - double-walled hulls are quite common in shipbuilding and it wouldn't take that much engineering to create a reasonably efficient circulation pattern.
But I'm pretty skeptical about whether that kind of power could be gotten from wave generation.
It's all about the cooling and self sustaining energy. This looks like a rebirth of Sun Microsystems 'Black Box'. http://inhabitat.com/sun-microsystems-project-blackbox/ in another form.
move the NSA out there, cut the cables and give 'em a push out to sea. google has the right idea.
it's only a matter of time before they get shut down by environmentalists. The problem with using sea water as cooling is that the net result is the warming of the sea water. Even only a few degrees can alter the local ecology. It would be one thing if what they were doing was a net zero effect, but if they are pulling energy off the grid, then they will be putting grid energy into the water as heat, and that is not good...
1234
If you read through the Wikipedia article you quoted, you'll learn that OTEC only really works in warm waters, where the heat difference between surface and depth is large enough. The best US location for OTEC is Hawaii, and there's only one functioning OTEC plant in the world, near Japan. So Google is most likely not building an OTEC plant, or they'd do so in a very different shipyard instead of on Treasure Island.
You don't have to submerge a barge to keep it in one spot. There are two easier options: mooring (a few $M upfront cost) and Dynamic Positioning (high running cost).
In addition to the one above (USCG Doc. No. 1243693), here's another one on the way: USCG Doc. No.: 1225103.