Google admits data center podification Google has admitted that its data centers are pieced together using intermodal shipping containers pre-packed with servers and cooling equipment. As reported by our friends at Data Center Knowledge, the search giant dropped its long-standing data-center wall of secrecy this morning during a company event in Mountain View. …
Quote: As it turns out, the Googleserver includes a power supply that packs its own battery, which means it can operate even when the server loses power from the outside
Which raises some very interesting questions regarding fire suppression. That system is all very good until one of these beasts catches fire. After that you get the University of Twente Deja Vu event: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/20/fire_devastates_dutch_internet_hub/
At eleast, in how little it actually reveals (and how out of date it is):
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=opera&rls=en&q=4200%20Columbia%20Rd%2C%20The%20Dalles&sourceid=opera&oe=utf-8&safe=on&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl
Compare, that, with this aireal shot, in the New York Times, from three years ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/technology/14search.html
The two new buildings with the massive cooling stacks are clearly the data centres, while a stack of containers sit between the two and a company canteen now occupies the very bend of the river. It is believed that cooling water is drawn direct from the river, exlaining irs proximity.
I like the folded sheet metal look. Shame it's locked away in a container never to see the light of day until it's disposed of. I'm suprised how many moving parts there are tho. Guess those disks will be raided, but what about those cpu fans and the psu fan? If one of those fails, does it bring down the whole system?
Is that PS2 and VGA ports on the front? Wonder what they are there for, unless it it designed to be servicable.
Why doesn't anyone else make em like this. :)
Google "didn't know how the well water couplers would work"? "At the time, there was nothing to go on."? Errr... pressurized liquid fittings inside of expensive equipment are not exactly new technology. They could have, you know, asked an industrial plumber or pipefitter, but I guess their PhD engineers are too good to talk to a mere plumber.
Streetview view. the car did not pass directly past Project 02, but you can see it, here, from River Road:
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=opera&q=4200+Columbia+Rd,+The+Dalles&sourceid=opera&oe=utf-8&ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&layer=c&cbll=45.630159,-121.204012&panoid=GNifFmwm2JDZ5g1Zgzj6tw&cbp=12,44.2529446734379,,0,2.3971078976640725&safe=on&z=16&iwloc=cent
My guess is that the patent isn't on the IDEA, "put a data center in a shipping container", but in the specifics of its implementation. That's where the difficulty lies anyway - and there's nothing wrong with them protecting novel ways of doing that.
It's probably similar to bitching when someone goes to a meeting where someone says "Let's make a horseless carriage!" and then patents 4-stroke internal combustion engines.
I haven't read the patent, so I can't say for sure, but whatever else you say about Google, they're not -idiots-, and they're not likely to have tried to patent "put a computer in a big box".
And to Cade Metz... "Admits"? Do you think you could spin that any further, or do you really think that putting a data center in a box is as morally corrupt as murder or mugging?
"Water was a big concern,” Urs Holzle, Google’s head of data center operations, told Data Center Knowledge. "You never know how well these couplings (on the water lines) work in real life. It turns out they work pretty well. At the time, there was nothing to go on."
Nothing to go on? So - these youngsters have never SEEN a water-cooled IBM mainframe???
Or even heard of one? Say a 3090? Even an old 360?
Those that never learn the past are condemned to repeat sounding stupid...
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