Startup Building Floating Data Centers

1sockchuck writes "A Bay Area startup is planning to build data centers on cargo container ships, which would be docked at piers in major Internet markets. The company, known as IDS (International Data Security) says it plans to use biodiesel to power its generators and use heat from equipment to manage temperature on board the ships, reducing their reliance on grid power. IDS is telling prospects that it hopes to eventually have more than 20 floating data centers docked at ports around the U.S."

the pirate bay

[an.echte.trilingue]

I bet you could sell server space on one of these to thepiratebay...

I can see the marketing now...

[faloi]

Sick of stable data centers inland, free from the excitement that comes from not knowing whether your data center will survive the latest hurricane or tropical storm? Tired of never meeting interesting longshoreman on your way to work? Try our new data center model!

Seems silly, but...

[russotto]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a server farm under tow!

(latency's a bitch, though)

Re:terrorism

[spleen_blender]

Oh god. Oh god. I am SO excited about this! I can finally live out my dream of being a pirate hacker! I think I just found my calling in life!

Raiding ship to ship, carrying off booty in binary, sword fights, parrots, wenches! ARRRRGH

*head asplodes*

take it one more step

[Anonymous Coward]

Float the ships off the coast, in international waters, fly a pirates flag and host accordingly.

WTF would you need that for?

[Loibisch]

"[...] docked at piers in major Internet markets."
Why would anyone ship data to a major internet market when you can just send it via an attachment? Duh...

D5!

[scoser]

You sunk my dataship!

Not trying to be snarly here...

[AndGodSed]

I hope this idea floats, I hope they have enough liquid assets...

Oh the puns! I can't resist!

Re:I can see the marketing now...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Yeah, but you have the advantage of actually using sysadmins as galley slaves.

Rationing applies

[rodney dill]

Sys admins will only get one pint of grog per day.

Re:well

[SnowZero]

and how they plan to connect to the shore? lay a fibre cable?

piering agreements.

Re:terrorism

[djasbestos]

They can still use pier to pier connections.

Re:terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

...programming in Sea+

Re:D5!

[u-bend]

I guess for once they don't want investors to sink their money into this one.

Re:the pirate bay

[EMeta]

Sell? They're the Pirate Bay. Why would they buy it?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Datatypes

[Dan East]

Startup Building Floating Data Centers

That's nice, but is there a demand for data centers that store only one type of number? What if we need to store integers?

Dan East

Re:What a bad idea

[angus_rg]

Don't forget how easy it will be for Soviet subs to ping our servers. At least they should be safe from Land attacks [wikipedia.org].

Never underestimate the bandwidth of

[mkcmkc]

a container ship filled with 9-track tapes... :-)

Whooosh...

[A nonymous Coward]

We need a new rating, Whoosh, for humorless droids who feel the need to correct jokes.

ambiguous

[sqldr]

"Sir, the datacentre's gone down!".

"ok, please clarify exactly what you mean by that.."

Re:Port Fees?

[pragma_x]

There are really not ANY benefits to running a data center on a ship that I can think of other than the ability to use pirate lingo.

Mister Smith, secure them backup tapes; I won't be havin' me data slidin' about on deck. Mister Taylor, re-run those CAT-5 cables and make it quick. There'll be no tangled rigging, or loose arrrr-J45's on my ship. Mister Martin, ye be throwin' them Cisco routers overboard, and invite their mangy sales crew over for a good plank walkin' - they be too slow for the likes o' me.

Mister Jones, if it weren't for them lying, theiving scoundrels at the I-arrr-S, I'd have no deal with the likes of ye accountin' folks. Apparently, the lot of 'em don't understand the meanin' of "parlay". But enough of me rambin' - just make sure ye decimal points be just, or I be keelhaulin' the lot of ya.

And as for the rest of ye lilly-livered scalawags, there'll be no drinkin', boozin', torrent-n' or World o' Warrrrcraft until after businessin' hours.

Arrr Meetin' be o-journ'd.

Re:terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean cutlasses are now Sea Sharps?

Re:Try Earthquake protection.

[Descalzo]

And the 1906 disaster was caused by lack of modern building codes and fire protection as much as anything else.

I disagree. It was caused by an earthquake.

Offshoring?

[dlim]

Perhaps they just got a little confused about the offshoring trend...

Re:Because...

[Fallen Seraph]

Then clearly they didn't want to sell to TPB because they needed to construct additional pylons...

Buzz-word 2.0 compliant

[HighOrbit]

Because "bio-diesel" sounds niffy, cutting edge, and enviro-friendly. Just the sorta thing that a bay-area tech exec who has money to spend will latch on to. Not to mention that bio-diesel will help them achieve enterprise-level scalability, lower TCO, and higher ROI by leveraging eco-friendly synergies.

Re:well

[Cousin Scuzzy]

Maybe they'll use a subnet.

Warning, bad jokes.

[LarsG]

CERT-advisory on limpet mines.

New April 1st RFC - floating point transfers over sub-nets.

The network is obviously pier to pier-based, you need good piering agreements.

Connection reset by pier.

The data center is down due to wetware failure.

Special offer - free salt for all your crypto needs.

Careful with that firewall, closed ports are bad.

"Digital Pirates" just acquired a new meaning.

The Dreaded Backhoe will be replaced by people phishing on the pier and people dropping <A>s

Sneakernet replaced by flippernet.

Overclockers rejoice, think of the extreme water-cooling possibilities.

Forget the Boston Tea Party. The Boston LAN Party will be way cooler.

Re:Try Earthquake protection.

[GaryPatterson]

While some of the fires were caused by ruptured gas lines, I understand that many of the fires following the earthquake were caused by people realising that they were uninsured against earthquakes (act of God) but were insured against fire.