back to article Five data centres you can't live without

Ever wondered what happened after you clicked on ‘Like’ or did a search on Google? Well wonder no more because here’s five data centres that run your life. 1. Google Dublin John Wiltshire, Data Center Operations, Google Dublin John Wiltshire, Data Center Operations technician in Google, Dublin When you do a search on …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    El-Reg ?

    Where is El-Reg served from ?

    1. batfastad
      Joke

      Re: El-Reg ?

      The internet circa 2002.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El-Reg ?

      Our servers are at Peer 1 in Portsmouth.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: El-Reg ?

        They do a good job. El Reg is my standard test for "is it me, ISP, or the rest of the universe?" connection issues. If anything works it'll be the Reg site.

    3. Zmodem

      Re: El-Reg ?

      BT http://www.renew-it.dk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/server-room-mess.jpg

  2. DaLo

    "This means they don’t need chillers to cool the servers but instead use purified and humidified air from outside"

    Assuming that is not a spelling mistake, why does the facebook data centre need to humidify the air? I hadn't heard of extra moisture having any advantage in a data centre, instinct would suggest that the drier the air the better.

    1. Ashley Ward

      My guess is that humid air has a higher heat capacity, and in cold climates air can be really dry indeed.

    2. DainB Bronze badge

      Static electricity

      Optimal humidity for datacenter is 45 to 50%, if it get's lower than 30% you'll be dealing with static electricity, if it gets higher than 60% you'll get corrosion.

      1. DaLo

        Re: Static electricity

        Researching a bit more those 45~50% figures are of quite a vintage. They've been expanded out significantly (20~80%) and the ESD worries in data centres are mostly dealt with using standard ESD floors and earthing straps.

        ASHRAE are expanding the recommended humidity ranges again along with their widening of temperature ranges to allow more free air cooling.

        http://www.ecocooling.co.uk/datacentre/datacentre_humidity.php

    3. Dan Paul

      @DaLo Latest datacenter cooling requirements......

      use outside air when there is a low enough temp as filtered OA in the 60F to 65F or below range. This is known as "Free Cooling". Since many servers can now operate well enough with 70F air temps, that's plenty of cooling.

      The days of chilled water or DX cooling to 50F discharge air is over unless it's free cooling or small systems. Or you have to de-humidify it if it gets over 60% rH. They even have good luck with "Swamp Coolers" (Evaporative cooling) in dry climates like the Middle East too. (Unlikely to happen in Blighty though)

  3. dubious
    Boffin

    with dry air you also start to run into issues with static electricity.

  4. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
    Coat

    And people worry about AGW from plane travel?

    Clearly social media and conspicuous consumption are the main culprits here. Talk about "first world problems"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And people worry about AGW from plane travel?

      First world is best world. The path to the singularity ain't free. It has to be be watered by damaged brains only able to tl;dr. James Lovelock, aka "the father of Global Warming" is not my prophet. Twitter and Facebook not hunger and dogfood, m'kay?

  5. dubious

    would this be AWS's Dublin Facility 2?

    https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4003902,-6.2200976,396m/data=!3m1!1e3

  6. future research

    1 data center I cannot live without. (well makes my live easier)

    I have a problem with the title. out of the 5, only 1 I think I agree with, and that is google. ( although I could probably manage with bing. Although I do use facebook, I sure I can live without it, many of my geek friends manage to survive. I don't use icloud or twitter (although they do have the benefit of keeping the people who do used them away from me.) Which leaves amazon, which is useful, but I could by products elsewhere using google.

  7. Nate Amsden

    I don't use any of those services

    But ironically enough that last QTS data center I can't live without since my own company's equipment is co-located there, it's a nice place, probably a half mile walk from the parking lot to our little corner of it (128 square feet - driving over $220M/year in revenue). Right next to a prison of all things. Can't wait to go back, I love Twin Peaks in Buckhead.

  8. MJI Silver badge

    I would miss

    123REG the most (my emails) then PSN

  9. Mark 85
    Devil

    Headline?

    I had to look twice as it's the type of headline certain mainstream media use for things like "5 nail polish colors you can't live without".

    1. lambda_beta
      Linux

      Re: Headline?

      Actually, life as we know it would go on without any of them.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Headline?

      Up to a point... There was no #3. Will Shock You!

  10. Lazlo Woodbine

    Are you sure that Netflix is served from Amazon's datacentres?

    Seems odd that the main competitor to Amazon's own Prime Instant Video (neé Love Film) would risk an "accidental" outage by relying on Amazon as their conduit to the world

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      SLAs are amazing stuff...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes we are sure

      Some links.

      P.S. AWS would be toast if it deliberately sabotaged the service of a rival

    3. Stuart Castle Silver badge
      WTF?

      Why is it odd? Amazon is split up into business units, and I daresay the unit running AWS isn't in competition with Netflix. Also, as noted above, Netflix will have Service level agreements with Amazon that will protect the service, and both the EU and the US are likely to slap Amazon should they use any insider access to damage the Netflix service in any way. In much the same way as the UK Government or EU would probably intervene if Virgin Media blocked access to Sky's online services.

      Another thing to consider: Netflix will be paying a lot of money to use Amazon's service. This means that regardless of who offers the most popular On demand service out of Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video, Amazon will profit..

  11. Borg.King
    Coat

    Million kilowatt . . .

    . . . that's a Gigawatt!

    167 Gigawatt hours - would that mean you could send 138 De Loreans back to the future every hour?

  12. Anonymous Hero
    Black Helicopters

    Meh, forget them....this is the daddy

    The NSA Utah Data Centre, after all the rest are just satellite feeders:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

  13. gr00001000

    Ireland cr*p weather win!

    Cold climate = more data centres + jobs

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