Architects Design a 65-Story Data Center (computerworld.com)

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Architects Design a 65-Story Data Center (computerworld.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday April 12, 2016 @07:10AM from the science-and-beauty dept.

Reader dcblogs writes: Two Italian architects have designed a data center that challenges how the structures are built. Instead of constructing a flat, sprawling complex, they are proposing a 65-story data center. From a visual perspective, the circular, futuristic-looking 'Data Tower,' as Marco Merletti and Valeria Mercuri call it, almost seems like something out of Star Trek. But it incorporates sustainable technology for efficiently cooling hundreds of thousands of servers while increasing reliance on automation. The building has a modular, cylindrical design that uses a series of pods to house servers, which are available for service in much the same way automated parking garage move cars. The data tower, as with a radiator, is designed to have the maximum contact surface with the outside. The pods are hooked on to the circular structure of the tower to form a series of vertical blades.

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Heat by jonnythan · 2016-04-12 07:15 · Score: 2

You'd better build the power plant next door. Imagine the energy that thing would consume.
The Empire State Building uses about 9-10 megawatts peak, and that's filled mostly with people and offices, not high-density servers.
1. Re:Heat by Wycliffe · 2016-04-12 07:27 · Score: 2
  
  You'd better build the power plant next door. Imagine the energy that thing would consume.
  The Empire State Building uses about 9-10 megawatts peak, and that's filled mostly with people and offices, not high-density servers.
  How is that different than current datacenters? Current datacenters already have tons of servers but for some reason are flat with alot less outside surface area. As the outside surface area increases slower than the inside area, it makes sense to have tall narrow datacenters if you are wanting to passively cool it. There is no logically reason to have single story datacenters.
2. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-12 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  Same reason you don't see skyscrapers except in the middle of very urban centers. It's much, much more money to build up than out. Many facets of maintenance are much more complicated with a tall facility. Having to deal with elevators and having to have a large volume of freight elevators is very tricky. So on and so forth.
  
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3. Re:Heat by Syntoxic+Sugar · 2016-04-12 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  You'd better build the power plant next door. Imagine the energy that thing would consume.
  Iceland's power comes mostly from hydro and geothermal. So, if it is indeed designed "with Iceland in mind," I think the location of the tower itself should be considered in terms of proximity to a geothermal zone or a hydro generator in that case.
4. Re:Heat by drew_kime · 2016-04-12 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  There is no logically reason to have single story datacenters.
  You've obviously never driven a forklift onto a freight elevator.
  
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5. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-12 07:57 · Score: 2
  
  Because if a general purpose freight elevator is too expensive, hard to maintain, etc, a highly customized application specific freight elevator dedicated to a column of racks would surely be the cure.
  This is a rather stylish looking concept that might be at home in some sci-fi media, but it is a horribly impractical concept to actually implement in real life.
  
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6. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-12 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  There's no way that solar could drive this. To even get close, you'd need a sea of reflectors. At which point, you might as build a sprawling datacenter because that would be cheaper anyway.
  
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7. Re:Heat by drew_kime · 2016-04-12 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  You clearly didn't RTFA. Paraphrasing a good bit, but: in Iceland, forklift is elevator
  My point was that single story datacenters don't need freight elevators.
  
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8. Re:Heat by Syntoxic+Sugar · 2016-04-12 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  I'm currently in cloudy Tucson, where solar could easily be used to power this thing.
  Sure, but then you'd have to choose on how to utilize the space - install a gazillion voltaic panels or a parking lot for the employees? And let's not forget the amount of gas you'd have to burn at night in order to keep the power supply constant. It's not like there's a concept of "peak load" for data centers (which have to be powered 24/7).
9. Re:Heat by phoenix_rizzen · 2016-04-12 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, but then you'd have to choose on how to utilize the space - install a gazillion voltaic panels or a parking lot for the employees?
  That's not an either/or situation. Just raise the "gazillion voltaic panels" 7 feet or so off the ground, and voila! Parking-lot sized carport. You get the solar power benefits, the employees get shaded parking that protects their vehicles from rain and sun. Win-win all around.
  There's a few malls (or maybe just Wal-Marts?) around the US that are doing something similar, but on a smaller scale. Just little islands of panels around the parking lot to power the lights at night.
10. Re:Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:26 · Score: 0
  
  They're also trickier to design. 5 story buildings don't have to deal with the top swaying several meters when it's windy, or drilling foundations hundreds of feet below the building.
11. Re:Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:31 · Score: 0
  
  Clearly you have never bought Infiniband or 40GigE cables. A 5m QSFP cable costs as much as a cheap host, and every rack in an IB fabric is typically connected to several neighbors in a 6D Torus. Oh and making those cables longer directly impacts performance. For this lift apparatus to work, each would need to have all its ToR cables, and mains power cables extended so that it can be ejected in the manner depicted in the artwork. This would add tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each pod.
  Spending $200k on added cabling for a rack/pod with $50k of equipment in it is a complete non-starter, no matter how cool and futuristic it might look.
12. Re:Heat by Syntoxic+Sugar · 2016-04-12 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  You get the solar power benefits, the employees get shaded parking that protects their vehicles from rain and sun.
  Really, the shaded carport is the only benefit in that scenario.
  It would also need to be a well-ventilated one, to make sure said employees don't catch the whiff of all that CO2 from the gas burning to support them solar benefits.
13. Re:Heat by NotAPK · 2016-04-12 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed, since at least a sprawling data center has all of that roof space for solar panels.
  Keep in mind that the power generated from solar panels in such a set up would barely be enough to run the lighting in the data center.
14. Re:Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  Depends on the area, you only really need to get down to bedrock which in some areas is quite shallow. And there are distinct advantages to a tall structure, In the case of a server farm you can pipe cool air from the top of the building to save energy. Its only a few degrees under normal circumstances but over the life of the structure you're probably talking megawatts of savings. I highly doubt building sway would affect modern servers significantly. Though unless you keep building costs down (standardized design, simplified construction, etc) the cost effectiveness could be a problem.
15. Re:Heat by serviscope_minor · 2016-04-12 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  I don't see how it makes sense to have tall, narrow datacentres when you could have long narrow single storey ones instead. Much cheaper to build, same surface area.
  
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16. Re:Heat by Lumpy · 2016-04-12 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  Yes there is... fires burn going UP faster than going out.
  
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17. Re:Heat by burne · 2016-04-12 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  The Empire State Building uses about 9-10 megawatts peak
  A French TGV uses 9.6MW peak during acceleration. That is a single train, not a 102 storey skyscraper.
  If you tried to impress me, you failed.
18. Re:Heat by Wycliffe · 2016-04-12 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  This is a rather stylish looking concept that might be at home in some sci-fi media, but it is a horribly impractical concept to actually implement in real life.
  Even if the construction cost was double, if it could cut the lifetime cooling cost significantly, it would still be worth it.
19. Re:Heat by PCM2 · 2016-04-12 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  You'd better build the power plant next door. Imagine the energy that thing would consume.
  The actual contest entry specified that the Data Tower would be built in Iceland, where it would be powered by 100 percent geothermal energy. (Whether that's actually possible, I couldn't tell you.)
  
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20. Re:Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 11:53 · Score: 0
  
  And if you want to wash your hands and flush the toilet in any particular order, getting water to the upper floors is tough.
21. Re:Heat by rockmuelle · 2016-04-12 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  While the architects may not have grasped the intricacies of network topologies and how they impact rack layout and design, there's no reason another round of architects couldn't take that into account and actually design a tower that would work.
  I'd imagine something more again to a giant smokestack with servers arrayed on the outside and cabling in the middle. The radius of the stack could be set to accommodate rings of servers with fast local interconnects (torus and star patterns within each ring). A "spinal cord" down the middle could provide a high-bandwidth backbone for the stack.
  Ropes for rappelling/ascending could give people access to anywhere and a network of cable lifts on the outsides could lift heavier loads for installing hardware.
  Just riffing here, but there are probably some designs that would work great and be cost effective, as along as you start the design from the perspective of building a giant computer first.
  -Chris
22. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:29 · Score: 1
  
  Yes but I suggest looking at industrial structures such as cooling towers or petrochemical plant as a comparison instead of office buildings.
23. Re: Heat by slazzy · 2016-04-12 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Logical reasons do include floor weight load, and you need all that space for generators, diesel tanks and Ac units.
  
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24. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  Horribly impractical? It's a cylinder with what is now comparatively cheap pretty bits stuck on the outside. It only looks impractical if you focus on the pretty bits, which are really just cantilevered balconies that don't go out an enormous distance (just like on a lot of other buildings but arranged in a different way).
25. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  In zero-g maybe, but here convection means a chimney is better than a horizontal duct.
26. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:38 · Score: 1
  
  Heat not photovoltaics.
  If solar gets the air and heat moving that's a major win even if the power to actually drive the servers comes from somewhere else.
27. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:42 · Score: 1
  
  powered by 100 percent geothermal energy. (Whether that's actually possible
  They have access to enormous amounts of geothermal heat there so possible is not the issue, cost, lead time and practicality is. You need heat sinks as well as heat sources so having a lake or something near the heat source makes it easier.
28. Re:Heat by aaarrrgggh · 2016-04-12 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  Back in the day, most data centers were 3 stories, often with one expansion floor above and below. It maximized the utility of the mainframe bus and tag system, ensuring that the most equipment possible could be in direct contact with each other.
  The next generation was largely two story facilities, stacking MEP infrastructure and the raised floor area. This better accommodated high(er) density solutions, as you had larger but shorter chilled water pipes, shorter electrical feeders, etc.
  Then, things moved to single story facilities. This was all well before EYP's modular data center concept. Single story facilities made it easier to use free cooling, swamp cooling, and other air-side economizer strategies. It improved construction time, as the structure was much more limited, and it made it a little easier to have absurd raised floor heights.
  Local factors also played a role-- land costs, floor area needs, network issues, etc., so you still see a few multi-story facilities being built.
  This concept is just another architect's penis, and apparently one that doesn't understand much about data centers. Sure you gain stack effect, at a cost of a whole lot of redundant maintenance efforts and absurd infrastructure components. A quick back of matchbox calculation is that each module would need at least 300kW critical (plus about 40kw parasitic load) to border on viable... at which point it would still be cheaper and more efficient to provide a containerized solution in a warehouse with a big old parabolic cooling tower for heat rejection.
29. Re:Heat by TapeCutter · 2016-04-12 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  It would also need to be a well-ventilated one, to make sure said employees don't catch the whiff of all that CO2 from the gas burning to support them solar benefits.
  Are you saying that so called "base load" coal somehow doesn't need fast switching gas turbines to meet peak demands?
  
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30. Re:Heat by TapeCutter · 2016-04-12 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  10MW is the peak output of a single modern windmill.
  
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31. Re:Heat by TapeCutter · 2016-04-12 15:58 · Score: 1
  
  The point is the building is designed to be a very efficient chimney, it doesn't need any air-conditioners, it also has a much smaller footprint so you don't need as much land as a flat data center. Whether the data center gets built will largely depend on whether the extra costs for building up is significantly less than the reduced land and air-conditioning costs. The building can (and probably will) be powered from the grid, geothermal plants can be located efficiently elsewhere on the island, eg: the North Atlantic ocean makes a great heat sink.
  
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32. Re: Heat by chaboud · 2016-04-12 16:07 · Score: 1
  
  That's great, but it's likely to be *much* more than that.
  Depending on where you are, it costs between $700 and $1400 to build out a square meter of office space, median, so that'll be low to mid rise construction. $1400 is the NYC figure ($128/sq ft).
  So how much was One World Trade Center? $3.8 billion, or roughly $16k per square meter.
  Double... Yeah... Good luck.
  Everything gets more expensive when you get tall. I've had multiple architects tell me that, for floors above 90, each floor costs twice as much to build as the floor beneath it.
  If land is cheap, building up is absolutely idiotic. It also provides limited fall back plans. Data centers have to occasionally handle fires, like, with firefighters. A skyscraper datacenter is tragically imbecilic on many levels.
33. Re: Heat by chaboud · 2016-04-12 16:12 · Score: 1
  
  So I know some professional riggers, people who climb tall structures to attach heavy equipment.
  I also know many IT professionals, people who manage and configure servers.
  Do you know how many people are in both groups? ...
  Right.. Zero.
  You've described a job that, among my friends, nobody is qualified for, and I'm a rock climbing coder.
  A plan predicated on rappelling, while totally badass, is doomed.
  Plus... Modular server farms? When the world runs on scalable virtual instances? Why?
34. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-12 17:30 · Score: 1
  
  eg: the North Atlantic ocean makes a great heat sink
  Yes but salt water cooling plus fighting with marine life is a huge pain in comparison with a small body of fresh water - hence cost and practicality - it's more practical to site in some place instead of others. Powering with 100% geothermal is definitely possible and while it may take time and have scaling issues it's definitely a good direction to head in for any place that has a lot of geothermal heat if only to get less dependence from imported resources. That said, monocultures suck and are just asking for a systemic failure so 100% of anything is a bad idea.
35. Re:Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 17:32 · Score: 0
  
  of course it needs air conditioners. You still have to control humidity levels, dust and air quality and what happens when it is too warm outside? I guess this new datacentre just shuts down? WE have over the years moved away from multi level datacentres as they simply don't make economic sense. The cost to build up instead of out is exponentially more, especially when a datacentre can be plonked down on cheap land just about anywhere, building up saves land space at the sacrifise of cost when no such saving is actually needed. Add in the designer actually doesn't seem to know much about thermodynamics as the shape would not be a cylinder if he did or networking it is farely obvious that this pretty much proves the rule of "never get an architect to design something you need to use".
36. Re:Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 17:53 · Score: 0
  
  This is the front door of the main power plank for Reykjavik, take a look around and tell me if land is at a premium:
  https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Geothermal+Energy+Exhibition/@64.038171,-21.4036417,3a,60y,304.88h,95.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8jDM3DEZIfVihg4AzBVpSA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xa2311f9e1c870f19!6m1!1e1
  Iceland has access to cool air and cold water throughout the island. For near-zero cooling cost you don't need anything more complicated than a chicken coop design:
  https://www.google.com/search?q=chicken+coop+data+center+design
37. Re:Heat by serviscope_minor · 2016-04-12 20:58 · Score: 1
  
  In zero-g maybe, but here convection means a chimney is better than a horizontal duct.
  True,but then you could just tack a chimney on to the building anyway. Then you wouldn't need a tall loadbearing structure.
  
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38. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-13 00:09 · Score: 1
  
  Each column has an elevator. Said elevator means only one pod may be serviced in a column at a time. If said elevator breaks, you have no alternative access to that column. The electrical infrastructure needed to make that work for the massive volume of electricity to a pod is unreasonable (and therefore at high risk of knocking out an entire pod on servicing a component). This all adds up to a great deal of expense and limited serviceability for..... no benefit really except looking exotic and having low footprint (and a more traditional high rise would be more practical for low foot print, though most people underestimate just how much weight we are talking and how relatively little weight high rises typically build to support due to the complexity and cost.
  Thermodynamics are simply not on the side of this being a particularly better cooling design. The only remotely true claim is that equipment is close to external air (which is rarely reliably cold enough, but that aside...), but there are much easier ways to get to fresh air if that's the goal.
  
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39. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-13 00:16 · Score: 1
  
  It won't cut the cooling cost at all compared to alternative, practical designs. If you are fixated on free air cooling there are a lot of alternative strategies to do that without resorting to a crazy complicated tower (or even a pretty mundane high-rise).
  If you care about cooling, water cooling would be a lot more bang for the buck. You can do chiller-free designs, and waste heat recovery. Sure there are going to be impellers in play, but the draw is not as significant. The general blocking point is the upfront cost, but if you are considering going to crazy combine-citadel architecture, this would be much cheaper. Contrary to the imagination of architects and readers, 'free air cooling' still needs fans to move the air (the tendency of hot air to rise is not adequate, and even if it were, you'd be fighting the geometric realities of the electronic components in play),
  
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40. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-13 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  Precisely. People saying 'it's tall so it can *be* a chimney or alternatively some have said 'oh, you can suck in air from the top (which isn't right, but for the sake of argument...). Whichever way you believe, if you want a chimney so bad, build a chimney.
  
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41. Re:Heat by Syntoxic+Sugar · 2016-04-13 00:53 · Score: 1
  
  In case I wasn't clear enough: in a building where energy is used on the order of MWhs to run the very purpose that the building was built for, switching on lightbulbs in the hallways and bathrooms during the day wouldn't exactly constitute a "peak load".
42. Re: Heat by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-13 04:41 · Score: 0
  
  You have that backwards. The roof area of a single story building scales directly proportionally to the inside square footage. A multi story building's outside walls only scale with the height of each floor. Single story buildings have much more outside area than a multi story structure.
43. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-14 19:54 · Score: 1
  
  Thermodynamics are simply not on the side of this being a particularly better cooling design
  It's hilarious when coders write like that.
  It could be better but the concept is not as much as a disaster as suggested - read the first three chapters of a first year thermodynamics text and you'll see that thermodynamics is roughly on the same side :)
44. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-15 02:18 · Score: 1
  
  I would think the delta T in a server cooling scenario can't be high enough to be that appealing for getting significant benefit from building taller. You can't really let the air inside a typical server get above 45C and still have any decent hope of removing enough heat to keep the temperature sufficient, even with a *hefty* airflow, and even that is considered way on the outside of any suggestion (typically you want to be under 35C, ASHRAE says it should be 27C or less). Stack effect relies on significant temperature differences to move volume of air, and I'm skeptical the flow rate would be compelling while sticking to the range needed to safely operate electronic equipment.
  Other than stack effect, I don't see anything that suggests needing such a tall structure.
  
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45. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-15 20:38 · Score: 1
  
  It appears the point is to have a huge empty space inside and the server fans are apparently drawing cold air from the outside to dump exhaust in that huge empty space where the hot air will slowly rise without heating up the core area much at all. That's why the concept is not as much as a disaster as suggested.
  I can see a lot of potential problems with input air (weather etc) but your comment above relies on assumptions that do not fit the concept images at all - look at all that empty space!
46. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-15 20:51 · Score: 1
  
  I think they just want a really tall tower. The air inside isn't going to move very fast but there is a LOT of it from those concept images. The servers may as well be outside.
47. Re:Heat by Junta · 2016-04-16 01:17 · Score: 1
  
  Then you could acheive the same end by having a sprawling field of 'cargo container' style datacenter organization (which was a fad that actually was being deployed, but feels like it has largely passed as well). My point is that building up is complex and presents a large amount of cost and suboptimal results for maintenance, presuming you do find a sane strategy for the data connections at all. Building up 'looks cool', but there isn't really a shortage of land for data centers to drive a need, and if you think distance to outside air is a virtue, you can do that at ground level easily enough.
  
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48. Re:Heat by ed.mps · 2016-04-17 02:12 · Score: 1
  
  You'd better build the power plant next door. Imagine the energy that thing would consume.
  The Empire State Building uses about 9-10 megawatts peak, and that's filled mostly with people and offices, not high-density servers.
  I know no one reads TFA and I'm 5 days later, but: "The data center was created with Iceland in mind, which gives it potential for use by both U.S. and European companies. It can be powered by hydropower and geothermal energy, and Iceland's proximity to the Arctic Circle means natural cooling will play a big role."
  
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49. Re:Heat by dbIII · 2016-04-17 13:18 · Score: 1
  
  Then you could acheive the same end by having a sprawling field of 'cargo container' style datacenter organization
  Yes.
  Now you are getting the idea on how that big empty space with used as a slow chimney can be modelled. The temperature difference is going to be of the order of 10C between the back of the servers and ambient - it's going to slowly rise without heating up much and with all that empty space it may as well be outside.
  
  So not a disaster - but I never said it was a better idea than just sticking the things in a row with a roof over the top.
  That "chicken coop" server farm mentioned here some time ago is more practical but redrawing old ideas is unlikely to win awards for concept drawings :)
  
  If it was me I'd probably have some layering to avoid long runs of stuff and it would be a big ugly vertical rectangular or square thing without much depth (instead of a big ugly cylinder), but I'm an engineer not an architect.
It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by elwinc · 2016-04-12 07:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

This architect doesn't seem to know enough about the physics of optimizing convective flow. It should be shaped more like a nuclear plant cooling tower, with a broader base, bigger cross section air inlets at the bottom, a bit of taper, and much larger diameter to height ratio.

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1. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Overzeetop · 2016-04-12 07:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  When architects say "designed like a radiator" what they really mean is that they were artistically inspired by some sort of cooling device enclosure they took a fancy to. They have almost zero grasp of all but the most basic physics and have never, ever set foot in a thermodynamics class or done any substantial heat transfer coursework. Heck, most would be lucky to read a psychrometric chart.
  
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2. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 07:40 · Score: 0, Interesting
  
  No.
  The assumption made with the cooling tower is that the majority of the heat to be carried away exists at the base.
  The computing tower doesn't do that - it provides added heat all along the height (think radiator, or a hot pipe cooling pipe - you put cooling fins all along the pipe, not just at the bottom). And that makes the
  broad base nearly useless.
  The other advantage of the cylindrical tower is that fresh air may be drawn in at any level, and it conserves useful ground area.
  If anything, it would be the inverse of the cooling tower, with the larger end at the top.
3. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by guruevi · 2016-04-12 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  But then it wouldn't be "pretty" anymore. Typically the way these things are built, they are photo-op first and then later do the technical challenges get 'fixed'.
  
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4. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Junta · 2016-04-12 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  Typically for these contest winning architect concepts, they are render-op first and... well stay that way because no one will ever build it because the architect is limited only by his imagination and artistic sensibilities, and is only interested in throwing practical sounding buzzwords vaguely at it.
  Just FYI, I think these are cool things to get rendered up, just find it odd when people take it seriously. E.g. http://www.discovery.com/dscov....
  
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5. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:18 · Score: 0
  
  I bet they're all connected via 802.11. "It works for my phone, why not servers too?"
6. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:51 · Score: 0
  
  I am still stuck figuring out how they are going to wire the servers into the power grid/network infrastructure while keeping them all-the-while inside portable storage units that are being continually moved around. Also, how much server redesign will be required to allow servers to undergo G-forces on a regular basis.
7. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by drew_kime · 2016-04-12 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Wish I had mod points to I could raise this above the wrongness.
  
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8. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Spazmania · 2016-04-12 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  Zero grasp indeed. The last thing you want is uncontrolled server inlet temperatures, whether hot or cold. You want a stable inlet temperature so the boards don't expand, contract and break solder joints. They've also completely overlooked humidity control which should remain between 40% and 55% if you want your servers to keep serving.
  And where are the wires? Wires go every which way in a data center and there are many tons of them. A data center without wires is a decoration.
  
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9. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by magarity · 2016-04-12 10:27 · Score: 1
  
  I am still stuck figuring out how they are going to wire the servers into the power grid/network infrastructure while keeping them all-the-while inside portable storage units that are being continually moved around.
  It was designed by 20-something architects. They probably think that since networking is wireless these days, nothing needs to do anything special to connect the module once it's lifted up to its spot.
10. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 10:40 · Score: 0
  
  False. Many architects are very well-trained in heat flow and know psychrometric charts quite well. I would know--I am one of them, and I can assure you that all building systems rely heavily on ensuring those work correctly.
  You may be correct in your analysis that they want to design aesthetically like a radiator, and this design certainly has its flaws, but the idea that if one project architect doesn't understand the relationship with thermodynamics then it means all are the same is just as equally flawed.
  And thinking outside of the box of typical crap-hole server box rooms is at least a step better than what has been done so far. Give the guy some credit for trying something different. It's always easier to critique than create.
11. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by pepsikid · 2016-04-12 11:00 · Score: 1
  
  Fecking computerworld keeps eating my comment....
  I've seen this design somewhere: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Cdoc...
  A silo shaped datacenter does make more sense for natural ventilation, but is much more expensive to build. They build them like warehouses instead, because it's the best way to save on upfront costs.
  A silo full of detachable pods, and elevators capable of moving them is impractical. That's a lot of weight and infrastructure for so little utility. These servers don't need to be replaced often. Plus, you'd have to take a whole pod offline to move it. It makes far more sense to have a cherry-picker for techs to ride up in.
  I would design a silo-shaped datacenter in two layers. Cold air would be forced/drawn up inside of a central duct. Servers would be arranged in a ring around the inner tube, with motherboards in vertical orientation. Fine metal screen-mesh, not sheetmetal, will keep EM noise down. Cool air would be drawn from the central tube to flow across the server's components. Warmed air would expand outward to the airgap between servers and outer wall, and continue to rise on their own from there, through transoms leading outside. It is important to maintain stable temperatures, which would be impossible in such a large vertical space. The tower would therefore be horizontally partitioned and have multiple air inlets and outlets at different elevations. Airflow would be passively managed using motorized baffles, and have active cooling fans when needed.
12. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  Cooling towers are sited where land use is not an issue so can afford to have a broad base. There are probably other constraints here such as land cost that are not instantly obvious.
13. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by aaarrrgggh · 2016-04-12 15:07 · Score: 1
  
  Very true. I remember an architect at (I think) Helmut Jahn's office pulling out a psychrometric chart and scaring the shit out of a senior HVAC engineer.
  That said, most architects have challenges with building systems beyond a buzzword level.
  Architects design towers to be iconic. This is a cool rendering. Impractical, but cool. However, the elegant solution would need to be integrated into a parabolic tower as the GP pointed out. It would need to address all the functional issues associated with a data center in an elegant manner to be exceptional.
  Modern data centers may take functionality too far-- there is room for elegance and finesse, but it must "follow function" to quote some guy. Core elements of the function are communications, power, cooling, reliability, security, and maintainability. Their solution hits on two of the six, but only elegantly in form.
14. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 15:36 · Score: 0
  
  Like so many "amazing" designs of architects, this reminds of the joke of team of architects getting excited of a plan where house is essentially a glass cube without doors, magically floating a metre (or, say a yard) above the ground. All comments questioning viability of the design are just envious hate speech against architects' incredible creativity.
  Anyone can sketch impossible things on paper. In my opinion that's not exactly the thing to behold. Having a plan that actually makes projects work is what matters here in the real life. Yet, architects with a mad plan that throws a bunch of trendy ideas together gets much more buzz than engineering that goes into actually designing and building higher-efficiency (and otherwise viable) data centres. I think it's a pity.
15. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by bloodhawk · 2016-04-12 17:44 · Score: 1
  
  Nothing wrong with trying something new, but you need to understand why current designs are the way they are and what are the core requirements of what you are using it for. This design looks cool but doesn't seem to actually take into account what a datacentre needs to actually do or how servers work.
16. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Megane · 2016-04-13 01:28 · Score: 1
  
  They also don't seem to understand the concept of humidity. Open air cooling by vertical convective flow may be great for humans, but is it a good idea for electronics? Even if you don't get condensation, if you are near an ocean (the architects are Italian, you work it out) you will have salty humidity in the air. ("The hot air inside the tower goes up and sucks the cold air from the outside. The outside cold air, to enter, is obliged to pass through the pods, and in this way cools the servers.") It also is useless in places where it gets hot in the summer, such as Texas.
  Another problem I see is that they intend for the modules to be brought down to ground level for maintenance. This might be fine if you are Google and have thousands of basically redundant servers, but if this is a data center with lots of customers, how are you going to explain to a customer about the need for downtime because the server in the next rack of the module needs to be upgraded?
  This is basically "stunt architecture" so that they can wow the judges of a competition that is if no consequence to the real world. The goal isn't to make a real building, it's to make the most awesome looking imaginary building without having to consider if it has fundamental flaws.
  
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17. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by jwdb · 2016-04-13 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe that's true in the US, but I'd expect that Italy's more like Belgium, where Architecture is an engineering discipline. In Belgium the architects were in the same chem, physics, thermo, calc, and other engineering classes as the rest of us, so they've got the same base as any EE, ME, etc.
18. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Megane · 2016-04-13 01:59 · Score: 1
  
  I missed the part of TFA where it said they intended for this to be built in Iceland, completely in the middle of fucking nowhere! The only good part is that Iceland probably has some decent bandwidth from transatlantic cables landing there. How you connect it (reliably!) to the middle of a big ice field is another matter. There's probably also earthquake issues to consider in Iceland, yet another reason not to make a high-rise.
  Of course the place to build a high-rise is in the middle of nowhere where land is plentiful! The usual reason for a high-rise building is because land and property tax is expensive. (For an example of a high-rise on its side, check out the USAA building.) In this case, the only reason is to get the chimney effect, which others have pointed out probably wouldn't even work properly as conceived.
  
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19. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by DarkLordBelial · 2016-04-13 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  Who needs wires when you have tubes?
20. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Overzeetop · 2016-04-13 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  For the vast majority of architects, any structures, fluid, or thermodynamics knowledge magically evaporates the day they walk out of their exams. I say this as a practicing engineer in the architectural world for nearly two decades. In a way, it's nice - it means I'm in demand because they can't do it themselves.
  There are a few out there who are, no doubt, technically competent - but they are in the vast minority, I'm afraid. I've seen some wildly innovative things from architects - some of them are brilliant, and some of them are in direct opposition to productivity or efficiency. The "design as a radiator" is in that latter category.
  
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21. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Agripa · 2016-04-13 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  A hyperboloid is used for large cooling towers because the inherent strength of the shape requires a minimum of material for a given size. This data center building is puny in comparison so there is no reason to use a hyperboloid shape.
22. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Coren22 · 2016-04-14 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  Also probably thinks the power will work like Qi.
  
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23. Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-14 23:47 · Score: 0
  
  we've had servers in under 20% humidity for years, and fluctuating temperature too to a degree. No issues what-so-ever with that setup.
  Now we have about 5degree daily fluctuation with economizers in play, no issues.
  Traditionally datacenters were kept in 17C too... Funny how research shows 30C no problem, 35C no problem, oh at above 40C constant hdd temp the drives start failing a bit more often, ok, let's keep it there ;)
  Yeah, that's Google.
  Look at Facebook, they have huge industrial scale, and even had raining within the datacenters. I doubt they have very narrow within 1C temperature control, and most definitely humidity can fluctuate like crazy. Either one will give with their cooling setup -> Outside air, chilled with water evaporation solely. Some recirc of interior air.
  As far the physics: 5-10C doesn't make much of thermal expansion, not even 20C.
  Cars work fine for decades with mostly basic maintenance with temperature variations as high as 160C, and for the electronics bits as high as 60C.
Only one reason to build... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-04-12 07:17 · Score: 2

The local property taxes are based on the footprint of the building. Stacking the data center upward would reduce the overall property taxes.
1. Re:Only one reason to build... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 07:24 · Score: 0
  
  ...then you'd think they'd build their data center on a barge or something...
2. Re:Only one reason to build... by Junta · 2016-04-12 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  And for a large chunk of applications, a cheaper approach would be to build it 15-30 miles away from the expensive area.
  However, architects regularly post pie in the sky, not fleshed out ideas to catch the eyes of companies that will build real, more down to earth projects inspired by the wacky concept art of an exotic thing.
  
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3. Re:Only one reason to build... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  You're only thinking about the land portion of the property taxes. There are still property taxes applied to improvements on the land, meaning buildings. So if this 65 story building ends up having 1,265,000 sq ft it's going to be taxed higher than a building with 1,265 sq ft on the exact same lot. Property taxes are not a "flat rate". For instance 1 acre in a large city could be assessed at over $40,000,000 where as 1,000 acres in a rural area could be assessed at $400,000
  Property taxes are almost always the absolute last thing anyone running a commercial structure like this is going to think about.
4. Re:Only one reason to build... by drew_kime · 2016-04-12 07:50 · Score: 2
  
  ...then you'd think they'd build their data center on a barge or something...
  Why float it when you can sink it?
  
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  Nope, no sig
5. Re:Only one reason to build... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-04-12 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  This being in a remote part of Iceland. What property taxes are you talking about?
  President Trump will annex Iceland and impose property taxes to pay for the Mexico wall.
6. Re:Only one reason to build... by rahvin112 · 2016-04-12 08:31 · Score: 1
  
  Tall buildings cost a lot more money per sq foot than one/two story buildings that can have their walls poured on site and tipped up. They don't build data centers tall because land is cheaper than tall buildings.
7. Re:Only one reason to build... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-04-12 08:52 · Score: 1
  
  They don't build data centers tall because land is cheaper than tall buildings.
  Depends on the land. Silicon Valley has very little open space. If you want a bigger building, you need to tear down the shorter building and build a taller building.
8. Re:Only one reason to build... by BoberFett · 2016-04-12 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  Why would anyone want a general purpose datacenter in SV? Build it in the middle of nowhere, somewhere along a long fiber link between major hubs.
9. Re:Only one reason to build... by radarskiy · 2016-04-12 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  There are very few places where they base property taxes on the unimproved value rather than the improved value. I can't actually name any.
10. Re:Only one reason to build... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-04-12 09:58 · Score: 1
  
  Why would anyone want a general purpose datacenter in SV?
  I'm aware of four or five clusters of data centers in Silicon Valley from job interviews over the years. Most are located there because headquarters is around the corner or belong to the telecoms. The MAE-West Internet node is several miles away in downtown San Jose.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-West
11. Re:Only one reason to build... by bloodhawk · 2016-04-12 17:50 · Score: 1
  
  Those want to be some fucking monumentally huge property tax rates to justify building up over out and the cost of floorspace is exponentially higher to build up.
12. Re: Only one reason to build... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 18:50 · Score: 0
  
  It is not American. It is not being built in America. It will not be paying taxes based on us tax code.
  I don't make decisions on buildings in Australia based on the tax system in mali, know why? It's a different country with different codes and laws.
I can see it now. by nimbius · 2016-04-12 07:23 · Score: 4, Funny

A team of elite system administrators --transcended of devops and cloud -- inhabit the 65 story monolith known only as "the shard." in this cloistered structure they work tirelessly, endlessly, pounding away on their Model M keyboards and furiously working to maintain the harmonious balance of man and machine. Clothed in tattered sackcloth, a single manager ascends the structure in search of the one. She arrives, breathless and pensive with anticipation as she approaches a lone icarian figure draped in golden silks atop a mighty Aeron chair. Her steps echoing cavernoisly against the server room floor until stepping unthinkably on a lone malted milk ball. Aware, the admin directs her heavenly gaze downward upon the lowly thought leader who stands frozen, crucified in awe.
"yes?" speaks the godlike sysop..
"My laptop is frozen....i cant...." replies the manager, and as she struggles to form her next few words the admin places a single hand upon her tear soaked cheek and in a soothing voice speaks
"Have you tried turning it off....and then on...again?"
Upon this revelation the manager becomes enlightened and overwhelmed with this knowledge ascends into the afterlife, purified in the wisdom of the admin.

or more likely the whole thing smells like old cheese, the lights are perpetually shut off, pizza delivery staff die from exposure, and theres a copy of userfriendly propping up a two wheeled crash cart full of old mcdonalds bags and taco bell wrappers.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:I can see it now. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 09:09 · Score: 0
  
  This Fucking Rules.
2. Re:I can see it now. by Megane · 2016-04-13 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  I just want to know how Simon and the PFY fit into this story. Then it would be perfect.
  
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I wonder... by SeaFox · 2016-04-12 07:29 · Score: 2

how many Libraries of Congress it can hold?
Oooo, not sure if I mean information storage or physical space now, huh?
Are the pods live when working on them? by Joe_Dragon · 2016-04-12 07:29 · Score: 1

Are the pods live when working on them?
So you can swap in and out servers / disks /etc without taking the full pod down?
Will this idea fit into other building lay outs so this can be put in to places that have better lag and bandwidth to you users?
1. Re:Are the pods live when working on them? by 110010001000 · 2016-04-12 07:33 · Score: 2
  
  It is a mastubatory exercise for an Architecture competition. It will never get built. It is just vanity designs by young architects trying to make a name for themselves. Nothing wrong with it - but it isn't ever going to be built. There is a reason they build data centers like they do now.
2. Re:Are the pods live when working on them? by 110010001000 · 2016-04-12 08:43 · Score: 2
  
  Actually it is called "concrete block one story buildings are cheap when built on rural land".
3. Re:Are the pods live when working on them? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 17:57 · Score: 0
  
  They don't want arseholes being imaginative, they want cost effective and practical. Why would they care whether it is a beautiful building when the average datacentre is built on industrial land somewhere that isn't regularly viewed and has a handful of people working in it. being imaginative is moronic unless you are being imaginative in ways to save money which this design is NOT.
4. Re:Are the pods live when working on them? by Megane · 2016-04-13 01:38 · Score: 1
  
  How are you going to keep the pod powered while you lower it 65 stories to the ground level? A really long extension cord? A third rail? (Mind the gap!) Also, wired Ethernet is limited to 100m, right? So you would have to use fiber, and be sure to not violate the minimum curve radius, wouldn't want to break it!
  
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5. Re:Are the pods live when working on them? by painandgreed · 2016-04-13 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  Actually it is called "concrete block one story buildings are cheap when built on rural land".
  Perhaps they get it built in a place where close proximity to urban environment is a must for a lot of servers. Perhaps in NYC right next to the stock exchange.
"...something out of Star Trek." by turkeydance · 2016-04-12 07:35 · Score: 2

makes it something like 50 years out of date.
1. Re:"...something out of Star Trek." by Junta · 2016-04-12 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  It doesn't remind me of Star Trek, it more reminds me of stuff built by the combine in half life 2.
  
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2. Re:"...something out of Star Trek." by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:55 · Score: 0
  
  Get with the times, Grampa.
  Old and busted: Star Trek.
  New hotness! Star Trek!
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The artists conception is hilarious by jandrese · 2016-04-12 07:57 · Score: 2

I love how the artist envisioned this datacenter being installed in some extremely remote moonscape that you can only access by hiking in on foot. The complete lack of a plan for cooling this monster is another nice touch.

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I read the internet for the articles.
1. Re:The artists conception is hilarious by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  It's planned for Iceland, shifting the racks (sorry, pods) to the outside of the building is the cooling plan. Each rack (sorry, pod) would have some local cooling mechanism that results in a heat exchange with the outdoor air. Whether the rails the racks (sorry, pods) run on open directly to the outside and are sealed by the racks (sorry, pods) or plug into chambers and the main heat exchange system is built into the walls of the protrusions is unclear, but one of the options allows local Icelanders with climbing gear to hack the servers without entering the building.
2. Re:The artists conception is hilarious by Megane · 2016-04-13 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  The task of getting sufficient bandwidth to a data center on a glacier is of no concern to such lofty exalted beings as architects. They are only there to design the buildings. It is the job of the filthy occupants to connect up their little boxes and blinky lights.
  
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Did they even think by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:02 · Score: 0

about the thousands of connectors when a pod would have to be disconnected to be moved down the elevator?
Designed by people who have ... by CanadianMacFan · 2016-04-12 08:11 · Score: 1

Two people who have never stepped inside a data centre in their life!
So in order to work on a computer you have to bring a whole pod down which would disconnect everything in that pad. F*cking brilliant. Or do all the cables follow it down while you work on whatever computers are in that pod?
Maybe they also designed the first generation of HP blades where you had to bring the whole rack down in order to work on the power supplies. God I hated those things after working on the IBM blades where if you had to change a power supply you hot swapped it assuming you had enough power to run the blades.
1. Re:Designed by people who have ... by gaudior · 2016-04-12 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  I think this is just an exercise for publicity, but the connection issues to the pods are not that difficult with current technology. If the pods must remain powered up and connected, then a flexible cable race can be built into the channel the pod rides on. If not, then it's even easier. The connections are just a scaled-up version of the mechanisms used for robotic disk and tape systems in play already.
2. Re:Designed by people who have ... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 09:25 · Score: 0
  
  Except the pods don't simply move up and down. They'll also be stacked and have to move sideways (otherwise you can't service 2 pods in the same column at the same time). Power is the easier one to deal with. It could be supplied via tracks similar to lighting track systems, multiple tracks for redundancy. You'll want a UPS in every rack to handle any fluctuations that happen while the pod is moving. Ethernet and fibre and going to have much bigger problems. WiFi just won't cut it - speed, security, point-to-point links, congestion, intermittent connectivity while roaming access points while the pod is moving. You'd need an entirely new type of wireless, something like tracked directed narrow beam microwave links. The architect has certainly designed something with a wow factor, but they haven't got any experience of how a data centre actually operates.
3. Re:Designed by people who have ... by Junta · 2016-04-13 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  The flexible cable race would be a hellish thing to service. It would also add ungodly lengths to your cables. Also, your cabling becomes complex since you have multiple cable races in the same column to wrangle...
  A tape library makes it work because it's relatively small. The design does not scale up to a 65 story building.
  
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This building would make by The-Ixian · 2016-04-12 08:30 · Score: 1

"In the cloud" a more factual statement

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1. Re:This building would make by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 08:43 · Score: 0
  
  Blade servers mounted in blade modules.
  It's blades all the way up or down
Man oh man! by GeekWithAKnife · 2016-04-12 09:01 · Score: 1

I cannot wait for them to get this completed.

Just imagine the panic and mayham when there's an HVAC outage and the lifts aren't working! DC techs are notoriously fast over short distances, especially fi there's pizza involved but 65 floors? SIXTY FIVE?? -I guess that will be on the Bear Grylls "Born survivor" futuristic show.

You know it in your heart that it has to be done for posterity; if only to study what happens when 500,000 servers' overheat alarms go off to answer the question "Is half a million rhythmic beeps actually enough to create seismic oscillation that may affect structural integrity?"

I humbly suggest the new possible term for such an event as mi ignem terrae what do you think they'll call those? -discuss.

--
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1. Re:Man oh man! by dbIII · 2016-04-12 13:57 · Score: 1
  
  Just imagine the panic and mayham when there's an HVAC outage
  The thing is a chimney. You've hit the only practical thing of the design and about the only problem it's not going to have :)
2. Re:Man oh man! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 18:05 · Score: 0
  
  It is a really BAD chimney, it most definitely will have airflow and heat problems. A good chimney design is not a cyclinder.
3. Re:Man oh man! by dbIII · 2016-04-15 20:40 · Score: 1
  
  It's a huge empty space. It doesn't matter if it's a bad chimney if you are not moving a lot of heat per cubic metre.
Story != storey by Bruce66423 · 2016-04-12 09:13 · Score: 1

So this is a 65 fable building? That's pretty fabulous...
1. Re:Story != storey by Anpatt7 · 2016-04-13 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, but it does in American English. Still, I want to see how your idea would be implemented IRL...
  
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Tall DCs aren't new and don't need funky looks. by nicolaiplum · 2016-04-12 09:22 · Score: 1

The design is a nice picture, but the reality of tall datacentre is much closer to 33 Thomas Street.
Also who wants their servers moved around for you to go near them? Only people working at Google-scale, where you take a whole pod offline every so often and fix all the broken bits, can do that.

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
1. Re:Tall DCs aren't new and don't need funky looks. by MightyYar · 2016-04-12 12:02 · Score: 1
  
  Ha! I came here to post the other NYC giant datacenter: 375 Pearl St
  "Only" 32 stories, but that's because each floor is 16-17 ft high to accommodate 1970s-era telephone switching equipment.
  
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2. Re:Tall DCs aren't new and don't need funky looks. by nicolaiplum · 2016-04-12 19:25 · Score: 1
  
  On the US west coast there is One Wilshire, now 30 floors entirely full of datacentre and telco.
  
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  "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Disaster Movie Idea by Stormy+Dragon · 2016-04-12 09:30 · Score: 1

The Towering Arduino
Floor load levels? by darthsilun · 2016-04-12 09:37 · Score: 1

The "lab" in our upper floor Bangalore office is maxed out, not because of space, power, or cooling, but because the floor won't carry the weight.

Our labs and DCs in our US facilities are all on the ground floor or in the basement for that reason.

I honestly wonder if those architects really considered the fact that racks of 20 2U servers weighs in at over half a tonne (1100 lbs) per sq meter.

One human in a cube probably weighs in at less than 1/50th of that (75kg human and another 75kg of desk and computer in 6-8 sq meters.

Those towers are going to need some pretty heavy duty flooring to hold that much weight.
1. Re:Floor load levels? by crunchygranola · 2016-04-12 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  My guess is that they probably did notice this fundamental issue of live load, which is common to every building built, ever.
  Residential live floor loads vary from 30 to 60 psf (pounds per square foot) depending on function of the floor. This 20 2U server load you cite is 110 psf, about twice the maximum seen in residential construction, but hardly unusual for industrial construction. The floor of 33 Thomas in New York (an AT&T switching/data facility is designed for 200-300 psf.
  
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2. Re:Floor load levels? by aaarrrgggh · 2016-04-12 15:43 · Score: 1
  
  Actually their design likely accommodates live load pretty well, since it has a bunch of columns relatively close together, and the pods have their own structural integrity. My guess is that the pods would be pretty close to 20T each. They could even have the columns taper outward for a larger base footprint effectively. If my math is anywhere close to correct they need less than 1m^2 at the base for the dead loads. They would also need about another square meter at each column for power conduits at 600V, or something slightly more realistic at 10-15kV.
  It would be an interesting concept to actually try to make work; I am guessing the starting point is more of a parabolic tower shape, or just a giant single-story structure to support a 150MW backup turbine and other similar "accessory" functions...
3. Re:Floor load levels? by Junta · 2016-04-13 00:40 · Score: 1
  
  Though typically office buildings will not design to high degrees of live load, because it's expensive. So yes, you can make tall buildings that can support massive loads, but the cost to do so makes many facilities just stick things in the basement if they do have a high rise, or build at a little more convenient location so they can sprawl out.
  
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aaaaand this is why by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 10:18 · Score: 0

serious structures are build by engineers, not architects.
New? by Nethead · 2016-04-12 12:09 · Score: 1

I worked a decade in a 34 story telco hotel in Seattle starting in the mid 90s. I watched elevators disappear to become power conduits; parking spaces in the 6 level garage become homes for generators and cooling. We even hosted (gratis) images.slashdot.org there because Malda had maxed out his T1.
Come to think of it, it kind of looks like a radiator.

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1. Re:New? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-13 05:07 · Score: 0
  
  Yea really there are several buildings in Atlanta over 20 stories that are old office building converted to data centers. I work in one for years called the "Carrier Hotel" due to the fact every Telco or Internet carrier has a POP there at least. The building is huge but I bet there isn't a 100 people in it during the day. Over 20 floors of computers but no people. The hall ways there with all the doors looks that the scene in The Matrix. We used to joke about that at work.
The Beast of Brussels by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 14:06 · Score: 0

Dr. Hanrick Eldeman, Chief Analyst of the Common Market Confederacy in Brussels, has revealed that a computerized restoration plan is already under way to straighten out world chaos. A crisis meeting in early 1974 brought together Common Market leaders, advisers and scientists at which time Dr. Eldeman unveiled "the Beast".
The Beast is a gigantic three story computer located in the administrative building of the headquarters of the Common Market.
That monster is a self-programming computer that has more than one hundred sources distributing entries. Experts in programming have perfected a plan that will handle by computer all of the world's trade.
This master plan would imply a system of digital enumeration of each human being of the earth. Thus the computer would give each inhabitant of the world a number to be used for each purchase or sale, removing the problem of present credit cards. This number would be invisibly tattooed by laser, either on the forehead or on the back of the hand. This would establish a walking credit card system. And the number could be seen only through infrared scanners, installed in special verification counters or in business places: 666
Dr.Eldeman pointed out that by using three entries of six digits each, every inhabitant of the world would be given a distinct credit card number.
Termites. by TapeCutter · 2016-04-12 15:27 · Score: 1

If solar gets the air and heat moving that's a major win even if the power to actually drive the servers comes from somewhere else.
The point is that the building doesn't need anything but the servers themselves to cool the building. The entire building is designed like a chimney, hot air from the server "pods" rises creating a convection current that draws in air from the outside. The building funnels the cool air through the "pods" - rinse and repeat. It minimises (or eliminates) the substantial cost of air-conditioning a data center, you don't need anything else to power the air-conditioners, the building itself is the air-conditioner. The larger the outside surface area the more air the structure can take in from outside, the hotter the servers the faster that air will flow through the building. The only downside I can see is - good luck putting it out if it is on fire!

Termites have been using similar "chimney" technology in their climate controlled mounds for hundreds of millions of years, it allows them to cultivate delicate tropical fungi in the middle of the desert.

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And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Not possible by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-12 19:42 · Score: 0

Whoever knows datacenter infrastructure (and that does not include visionary architects in their twenties) sees well how this project is not feasible or, if feasible, absolutely not economically viable due to at least one core element: cabling.
Perfect Target... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-13 03:56 · Score: 0

Since the "Web" part of the internet, that is, myriad connection redundancy has been designed out of the internet now, to allow the big players to control Hubs, (think Akamai), this makes perfect sense.
Let's take a ginormous hub, stick it way up in the air and paint a big red target on it. I suspect a mid-size jet like a 737 would do nicely. No need for a 747. Well done to the "geniuses" who run the world today.
It Will HAVE To Be in Space. by tmjva · 2016-04-13 05:37 · Score: 1

Papal Mainframe v. 1.0

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Location by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-14 00:21 · Score: 0

Data Centers should be deep underground for obvious reasons. WW3 anyone???