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Architects Design a 65-Story Data Center (computerworld.com)
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.
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.
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.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
The local property taxes are based on the footprint of the building. Stacking the data center upward would reduce the overall property taxes.
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.
how many Libraries of Congress it can hold?
Oooo, not sure if I mean information storage or physical space now, huh?
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.
makes it something like 50 years out of date.
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.
I read the internet for the articles.
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Actually it is called "concrete block one story buildings are cheap when built on rural land".