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North Slope Server Farm
Posted by
timothy
on Mon May 14, 2001 10:13 AM
from the shades-of-an-alistair-maclean-novel dept.
from the shades-of-an-alistair-maclean-novel dept.
A nameless cringer writes: "Netricity proposes an Internet data storage center on Alaska's North Slope to take advantage of the isolation (maybe a polar bear would break in), cold (easy to A/C; just open some vents to the outside), and abundant natural gas to run the generators. There's already a fat pipe running down the Alaska Pipeline to 'america.' Oil pipeline & data pipeline -- two good targets ... " And like anything else about the North Slope, raises hard-to-answer questions about the preservation of nature vs. human comfort.
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North Slope Server Farm
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Temperatures (Score:3)
Idiot.
No penguins? (Score:3)
Buy hundreds of laptops and fit them with wireless LAN cards. Remove the standard casing and put the insides into a penguin-shaped case. Put wheels powered by an electric on the bottom of each penguin and let them loose at the South Pole. You now have highly redundant, mobile, distributed data storage. If you can't visualize what I mean, watch a few episodes of the Batman TV series, I'm sure at least one must feature motorized penguins running amok.
The only question is what OS to run on these servers.
Re:Summers are hot there (Score:3)
Huh? Anchorage (one of the warmer parts of Alaska), for example, only averages above 65 for nine days in the heat of July, after that it's all downhill.
On the North Slope things are much colder. That same July peak only has them at 46.
--
Poliglut [poliglut.com]
Re:Natural cooling (Score:5)
a. Don't build them in hot climates.
This is the only legit part of the post. Of course, if the cost of energy is less than the cost of labor (remember that a lot of the labor is in hot climates!) then hot climates still make a lost of sense. Labor is your largest cost after all.
b. If you do build them in hot climates you should have to build a large solar panel array on the top of the facility.
That's great as a throw away comment. That solar array isn't going to give you nearly the power you need, nor produce it efficiently. Remember, it's the cost per megawatt that counts and solar isn't cost competative yet even if you could run a data center on only solar.
c. When it's cold outside, open the windows. Nothing is dumber than having the air conditioning on in the winter! If dust bothers you, suck in outside air and filter it.
Think climate control, not air conditioning. The moisture is important too. Opening windows (except in a desert and you already said we can't build there) will corrode all your systems. In the colder days you talk about the air conditioners are very efficient in terms of heat transfer and act mostly as humidity control.
d. In hot climates build them underground. Once you get a few feet down the earth's crust is actually pretty cool. Extend large heat sinks into the surrounding terrain to use the earth's natural cooling.
Once again you have a decent idea for homes, but it doesn't scale to the energy requirements of a data center.
e. the source of the problem is the heat generated by equipment, why not design coller equipment instead? This is possible, there just is a lack of motivation to do it
They have. One P4 throwing off 50 watts, but running 200 web servers is a lot more efficient thatn 200 486's.
--
Poliglut [poliglut.com]
What about the sysadmin? (Score:5)
j
No real impact on nature (Score:5)
Many were shocked to find that after the construction was finished the wildlife moved right back in and hardly payed the large pipes any attention. While they will keep their distance from humans they seem to care less about all the steel and concreat.
As for who would stay up there and for how long, my relatives shift was 3 weeks up at the slope and 2 weeks at home and the company flew him there and back. He always seemed to like the schedule as he felt like he was always getting a 2 week vacation.
The only real problems I can see with something liek this is hardware breakage and replacement. If something goes down and there isn't a replacement on site, it could take a few days pending on a few factors.
1. Availability of a replacement
2. Shipping time to a staging point (Usualy Ancorage)
3. Flight time (weather is a massive factor here as the cross to the slope is well into the arctice circle and the plane must cross the Brooks Range)
Other then those areas, the only other thing I could suggest is that there be 3-4 ppl on site all the time since human interaction is a must even for the most anti-social person in a place like that where going outside could mean facing -70+ temps and everyting is all white for most of the year.
Natural cooling (Score:4)
Instead of building a co-lo facility where you couldn't find any skilled labor to run it, why not build one near a source of cool water instead. Then you could exchange the heat into a moving current of a large body of water. The heat you add would be negligible to the environment, and you'd save money. It could also be built near a source of skilled labor. Nuclear power plants already do this.
Some more ideas on better co-lo facilities:
a. Don't build them in hot climates.
b. If you do build them in hot climates you should have to build a large solar panel array on the top of the facility.
c. When it's cold outside, open the windows. Nothing is dumber than having the air conditioning on in the winter! If dust bothers you, suck in outside air and filter it.
d. In hot climates build them underground. Once you get a few feet down the earth's crust is actually pretty cool. Extend large heat sinks into the surrounding terrain to use the earth's natural cooling.
e. the source of the problem is the heat generated by equipment, why not design coller equipment instead? This is possible, there just is a lack of motivation to do it
Because there are many SysAdmins in Alaska.... (Score:4)
If they need lots of gas, why not locate near a gas pipeline, and for cooling, near a river or other large body of water? Nuclear power plants use rivers/lakes/ocean for cooling, why not data centers?
Never mind the fact that there seems to be only one (!!) fiber optic cable connecting them to the internet.... Let's talk about the cost of laying another cable going through another location.
Sounds like a stupid idea thought up by some marketing idiots.
-- CKM
internet systems architect - scalability - commerce
Re:Natural cooling (Score:3)
Just one problem with the whole river scheme, environmentalists are already criticizing nuclear plants for doing this. Its called thermal pollution.
Re:Big $$$ (Score:3)
The problem is going to be permitting. You can't build anything on tundra without asking all kinds of people. It's still years away.
They could however lease one of the decommissioned facilities, if they are still around. They are *enormous* to put it lightly. Hell, there are oil storage tanks here that are 50,000 bbls of oil in volume.
Re:What about the sysadmin? (Score:4)
We work shifts either 1 week or 2 week shifts. I'm a two weeks on, two weeks off schedule. I actually live in Philadelphia and fly up here every two weeks.
and yes, the money is good enough for me to cover travel costs, and live pretty well.
Easy to cool (Score:4)
Solid-state components prob'ly don't mind subzero temps, but the drives sure will. To pick one example, this Maxtor SCSI drive [maxtor.com] is only rated to run above 5C. Heck, NON-operating temperature is only -40C.
--
Preservation of nature vs. Human comfort? (Score:4)
Re:Big $$$ -- Please (Score:5)
Re:Big $$$ -- Please (Score:5)
Hogwash. The reality is that even with technologies like DWDM, you still have to have fiber that has sufficient reflective qualities along the walls of the fiber across a broader range of frequency. Yes, most fiber these days are adequate to one extent or another for DWDM, but you can't safely make that assumption when you're budgeting a project of this scale, can you? I thought not.
Futhermore, a cable like GCI's, which lays in the ocean, requires repeaters at given intervals. Each repeater is designed to operate over a specific range of frequencies, so one again, you have no guarantees that they're already prepared to do heavy DWDM. As I recall, when they laid their cable, DWDM was still in the early stages in the industry, and didn't have the acceptance levels they do today.
In short, don't think you can solve all of your problems by whipping some magic fiber-fairy out of your ass. Alaska is *not* the most well connected state on the Internet, and that *has* to be a consideration for any Alaskan-based data center.
As an additional side note, did you know that Alaska wastes an incredible amount of bandwidth to the lower 48 just to view Alaskan web sites? The lack of a peering agreement between the two biggest players, ACS & GCI, forces any subscriber on one to send all of their traffic through Seattle, WA, just to visit a site on the other. It's things like that which should illuminate the somewhat ludicrous bandwidth predicaments we find ourselves in up here.
Tell the SA's they are in training for MARS (Score:4)
But, you get full internet connectivity, and you can be put on the waiting list for a trip to Mars.
Re:Big $$$ -- Please (Score:5)
I think I am going to live my life by that axiom.
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Easy to heat (numbers) (Score:3)
Cooling is going to be the problem, even on the North Slope. It would be smart to run a pipe out into the Arctic ocean and bring in cold seawater for cooling purposes; a secondary glycol loop running to chiller plates in the servers would make for a relatively cheap and reliable cooling system for the summers. For winter, just circulate the glycol through pipes on the roof or dry cooling towers.
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Having 50 karma is an itchy feeling; I know I'll get
I can see it now... (Score:5)