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A Supercomputer In a 19th Century Church Is 'World's Most Beautiful Data Center' (vice.com)
"Motherboard spoke to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center about how it outfitted a deconsecrated 19th century chapel to host the MareNostrum 4 -- the 25th most powerful supercomputer in the world," writes Slashdot reader dmoberhaus. From the report: Heralded as the "most beautiful data center in the world," the MareNostrum supercomputer came online in 2005, but was originally hosted in a different building at the university. Meaning "our sea" in Latin, the original MareNostrum was capable of performing 42.35 teraflops -- 42.35 trillion operations per second -- making it one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe at the time. Yet the MareNostrum rightly became known for its aesthetics as much as its computing power. According to Gemma Maspoch, head of communications for Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which oversees the MareNostrum facility, the decision to place the computer in a giant glass box inside a chapel was ultimately for practical reasons.
"We were in need of hundreds of square meters without columns and the capacity to support 44.5 tons of weight," Maspoch told me in an email. "At the time there was not much available space at the university and the only room that satisfied our requirements was the Torre Girona chapel. We did not doubt it for a moment and we installed a supercomputer in it." According to Maspoch, the chapel required relatively few modifications to host the supercomputer, such as reinforcing the soil around the church so that it would hold the computer's weight and designing a glass box that would house the computer and help cool it. The supercomputer has been beefed up over the years. Most recently, the fourth iteration came online in 2017 "with a peak computing capacity of 11 thousand trillion operations per second (11.15 petaflops)," reports Motherboard. "MareNostrum 4 is spread over 48 server racks comprising a total of 3,456 nodes. A node consists of two Intel chips, each of which has 24 processors."
"We were in need of hundreds of square meters without columns and the capacity to support 44.5 tons of weight," Maspoch told me in an email. "At the time there was not much available space at the university and the only room that satisfied our requirements was the Torre Girona chapel. We did not doubt it for a moment and we installed a supercomputer in it." According to Maspoch, the chapel required relatively few modifications to host the supercomputer, such as reinforcing the soil around the church so that it would hold the computer's weight and designing a glass box that would house the computer and help cool it. The supercomputer has been beefed up over the years. Most recently, the fourth iteration came online in 2017 "with a peak computing capacity of 11 thousand trillion operations per second (11.15 petaflops)," reports Motherboard. "MareNostrum 4 is spread over 48 server racks comprising a total of 3,456 nodes. A node consists of two Intel chips, each of which has 24 processors."
At least something useful has been done with a church.
On the one hand, clever use of an unused building.
On the other, I am disappointed. A carved wood facade for that glass cage would've done wonders to integrate it visually. And find a way to make pews work to hold gear.
And on one foot, what, no organ?! =o(
My plan was to turn a brit phone box (the red kind) into a rack. Put in four posts and use it as a home server rack. But alas, time went on, and I don't need a rack anymore. Not even for audio. My cinema's half rack currently is half empty now because progress. One receiver, one bluray, one very tiny cable box and apple tv.. I have one shelf holding an unused dvd player because I can't stand to see empty slots in a rack, dammit.
Huh. Maybe I should put the atv there, in that shelf where the unused dvd player is. All alone, a little tiny atv in a shelf meant to take a 50 pound amp. Black on black, nearly invisible. o.O
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
run TempleOS?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
10 comments in and still nothing about the Papal Mainframe?
This ain't the /. I used to know.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Personally I don't get the most beautiful data center thing. Was expecting it to be integrated into setting in some interesting way rather than literally just a box of racks in the middle of a room.
Nevertheless was very impressed by lack of nylon cable ties. Velcro more than makes up for the initial disappointment.
"A node consists of two Intel chips, each of which has 24 processors." Not to be pedantic (OK, I'm going to be pedantic), but shouldn't this read "each of which has 24 cores"? Maybe the original wording is correct, and yes you could say that a core IS a processor, but I'm a bit OCD on terminology. :)
1. Thou shalt not divide by zero.
2. Thou shalt back up often.
3. Thou shalt rotate backups.
4. Thou shalt not ship beta versions to paying customers.
5. Thou shalt not sign any Oracle contracts.
6. Thou shalt include proper open source license files.
7. Thou shalt not use systemd without a helmet and insurance.
8. Thou shalt not duplicate duplication.
9. Thou shalt check for stack overflows unless performance is absolutely paramount.
10. Thou shalt not mention the orange mortal on Slashdot.
11. Thou shalt check for off-by-one errors.
Table-ized A.I.
Also check out the Internet Archives headquarters in San Francisco, set up in an old Christian Scientist church. Another interesting (if a little weird -- each current and former IAer gets their own personalized, terracotta warrior-style figurine) unused religious building re-purposed as a data center (and tech headquarters in this case).
Looks like just the sort of place that a James Bond villain/hacker would set up his operation to bring down the banking system.
Have gnu, will travel.
And AC said: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And there was light
Dialectician. Archology.
Ping request could not find host God. Please check the name and try again.
...is the name the Romans used for what we call the Mediterranean.
I once visited a customer who's installation was in a repurposed hotel on the Thames south bank. The machine room had gold-plated bathroom fittings!
The Internet Archive's HQ is in an old church, and they keep (some of) their servers in the main room (eg).
I guess the author really believes the old saying "One picture is worth 1000 words."
No photo gallery?
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Go and have a look at AQL in Leeds, England. They built a data centre in a disused church about 20 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or https://aql.com/
This location features heavily in Dan Brown's "Origin" novel.
The most beautiful data center I ever saw was the USC ISI data center in Marina Del Rey, California. It's been there since at least the 1970s, and was part of the early creation of the Arpanet/Internet. It's on the top floor of a 12 story building, that at least in the olden days had no other tall buildings around it because of earthquake risk. It was easier to cool because it was near the roof air conditioning compressors. It has panoramic windows all around overlooking the beach and the ocean. There were special rails to keep hardware from falling out the windows in case of earthquake.
https://www.isi.edu/about/hist...