That's assuming every watt that goes into the data center gets to the IT load. Though it says in the documents for the facility that they're going to make it energy efficient, power still needs to be used for air conditioning, redundancy, facility lighting, security, etc. Assuming a PUE of 1.5 (PUE is total facility power divided by IT load), which is very efficient, you're talking about 85,000 servers.
But even that assumes all the IT load will be for servers. Certainly there will be power going to servers, network switches, etc., so the total would be lower than that. And if the NSA is using any larger servers (which considering its history, it most likely is), the number could be substantially lower than that. The average power consumption for a TOP10 supercomputer in 2008, for example, is about 1.3 megawatts, which in itself equals 2,600 500-watt servers.
The story has an error. IBM operates a total of 8 million square feet of data center space. These six data centers in particular are just a portion of that. Though I couldn't figure out how much square footage is in the six data centers, IBM told me that the three U.S. sites (New York, Connecticut, Colorado) take up about 184,000 square feet. I don't know how much the other three sites (U.K., Japan, Australia) take up, but assuming that they also add up to 184,000 square feet, you're talking about 370,000 square feet total for the six sites.
More details in this story. It definitely seems like a "we promised the customer we'd be ready by this time so you'd better get it done" type of deal. Demand for colo space is strong, but I don't know that it's so strong that Pipe Networks has to cobble together a data center as fast as it can. It could have probably doubled the time and it wouldn't have made a difference.
The story also says the 60-day period is just the construction time period, and not the planning behind it, etc. But whatever. They created some hype and it worked. It worked too well, apparently.
Actually, it could. All the scams would be on the.safe domain, so if legitimate businesses were smart, they'd set up shop on the.scam domain. Then we'd know that if we didn't want to be scammed, we could go to a.scam domain. Oh, but then the scams would catch on to that little trick, wouldn't they? Drat!
The record companies would justify their demand by arguing that obtaining an exact replica of a product for free that they have copyright on and are selling for a price is akin to stealing it.
It's obviously a tough issue and I haven't decided where I come down on it. In the meantime, while I anguish over the topic, I continue to download music for free.
I don't think the RIAA is going to sue you for painting your CD or posing for a picture in front of it. They'll sue you for obtaining that CD (or its digital equivalent) without paying for it. Trust me, if you bought a car and were able to make an exact replica of it for free so you could hand it to thousands of other people for free, the car industry would be all over you.
I think Interscope and Reznor knew that if they left a thumb drive in some bathroom so some dude could find songs on an upcoming album, that the music would probably end up being distributed online. They may not have explicitly authorized it, but they knew.
That being said, don't you know that anytime an industry makes its customers actually pay for something, it's a serious crime in these quarters?
This is a good question. Should I respect a culture with a different morality than my own? Should I respect cultures that, for example, circumcise women as a regular practice and have been doing it for "a thousand years?" I tend to think this is a case-by-case basis.
I realize that female circumcision is much different than banning YouTube, but I don't consider people "trolls" if they disagree with the Thai government's decision to try to control the public arena, just as I wouldn't consider people "trolls" if they criticized the current U.S. administration for practices they found offensive.
As a total aside, I was in Vegas last week, and that place is filled with washed-up actors, musicians and comedians. The Hoff is starring in the Vegas version of The Producers; meanwhile comedians like Carrot Top and Rita Rudner have resident gigs. And they want a lot of money, too, like $65 to go see Rita Rudner.
It seems unfortunate that The Tech Report is the one that has to step up and measure energy efficiency. OK, so AMD is more efficient at idle and Xeon is more efficient at 100%. Who ever really runs at either of those levels? What about 10%, 20%, 30%, etc. Those are real-life utilization rates. SPEC is looking into doing something. So is the EPA. Maybe they can get together and figure it out.
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But even that assumes all the IT load will be for servers. Certainly there will be power going to servers, network switches, etc., so the total would be lower than that. And if the NSA is using any larger servers (which considering its history, it most likely is), the number could be substantially lower than that. The average power consumption for a TOP10 supercomputer in 2008, for example, is about 1.3 megawatts, which in itself equals 2,600 500-watt servers.
The story has an error. IBM operates a total of 8 million square feet of data center space. These six data centers in particular are just a portion of that. Though I couldn't figure out how much square footage is in the six data centers, IBM told me that the three U.S. sites (New York, Connecticut, Colorado) take up about 184,000 square feet. I don't know how much the other three sites (U.K., Japan, Australia) take up, but assuming that they also add up to 184,000 square feet, you're talking about 370,000 square feet total for the six sites.
The story also says the 60-day period is just the construction time period, and not the planning behind it, etc. But whatever. They created some hype and it worked. It worked too well, apparently.
Actually, it could. All the scams would be on the .safe domain, so if legitimate businesses were smart, they'd set up shop on the .scam domain. Then we'd know that if we didn't want to be scammed, we could go to a .scam domain. Oh, but then the scams would catch on to that little trick, wouldn't they? Drat!
The article suggests .bank as well. That could be OK, but what about financial firms that might not consider themselves banks?
It's obviously a tough issue and I haven't decided where I come down on it. In the meantime, while I anguish over the topic, I continue to download music for free.
Why?
I don't think the RIAA is going to sue you for painting your CD or posing for a picture in front of it. They'll sue you for obtaining that CD (or its digital equivalent) without paying for it. Trust me, if you bought a car and were able to make an exact replica of it for free so you could hand it to thousands of other people for free, the car industry would be all over you.
The U.S. government is not mandating male circumcision, last I checked.
That being said, don't you know that anytime an industry makes its customers actually pay for something, it's a serious crime in these quarters?
I realize that female circumcision is much different than banning YouTube, but I don't consider people "trolls" if they disagree with the Thai government's decision to try to control the public arena, just as I wouldn't consider people "trolls" if they criticized the current U.S. administration for practices they found offensive.
As a total aside, I was in Vegas last week, and that place is filled with washed-up actors, musicians and comedians. The Hoff is starring in the Vegas version of The Producers; meanwhile comedians like Carrot Top and Rita Rudner have resident gigs. And they want a lot of money, too, like $65 to go see Rita Rudner.
Aww, somebody's cranky.
Sweet! It looks like Russians have caught the frivolous lawsuit virus. I guess we must have won the Cold War after all.
It seems unfortunate that The Tech Report is the one that has to step up and measure energy efficiency. OK, so AMD is more efficient at idle and Xeon is more efficient at 100%. Who ever really runs at either of those levels? What about 10%, 20%, 30%, etc. Those are real-life utilization rates. SPEC is looking into doing something. So is the EPA. Maybe they can get together and figure it out.