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Data Center Heats a Greenhouse

Posted by Rich Miller on May 16, 2008

We've seen in a number of interesting uses of data center waste heat in recent months, most notably
IBM's system to use waste heat from a data center in Switzerland to heat a nearby community swimming pool.

Paul Brenner from the University of Notre Dame Center for Research Computing has developed another novel approach to recycling waste heat. In a recent presentation at an open source conference in Oakland, Brenner said he had placed a rack of high-performance computing (HPC) nodes at a local municipal greenhouse, the South Bend Greenhouse and Botanical Garden, to help heat the flowers and plants in the facility. Here's a description from Sun's Mike Stevens:

Based on early prototype work which involves placing single rack in the greenhouse, the idea looks like a promising way to reduce natural gas heating requirements for the facility. Brenner has shown he can use grid scheduling software to deliver a desired temperature (within a range, of course) by simply adding or throttling compute jobs on the greenhouse cluster, which communicates with Notre Dame via a wide-area wireless broadband connection. He has looked at humidity issues and so far they don't seem to be a problem given the ranges supported by typical compute gear. And he points out that while the greenhouse environment does not offer the highly filtered environment of a controlled datacenter, the particulate tolerance for typical compute gear is far in excess of EPA guidelines for people. Phase II will involve placing three full racks of gear at the greenhouse to significantly reduce heating costs. Notre Dame will pay the electrical costs and use the compute resources. The city saves money on heating.

Brenner's full presentation is available online (PDF).

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May 16, 2008

A Look at Modular Power Expansion

Modular expansion isn't just for servers or compute capacity. Several vendors have developed products that allow data center operators to easily expand the power capacity of existing facilities, or an instant power infrastructure for container-based expansion solutions. Active Power, Inc. (ACPW) has developed PowerHouse (pictured above) which packages a flywheel UPS, switchgear, a diesel generator and fuel tanks in a shipping container.

PowerHouse was designed to provide a turnkey power and cooling infrastructure to accompany the Sun Modular Data Center S20, easily sold two containers to Tesco PLC to boost power capacity in existing data center. The PowerHouse gear is stored in a 40 foot shipping container, similar to those now being used in mobile data centers from Microsoft, Rackable, Verari, IBM and Dell.

Last summer we first began to note is the emergence of products customized for the "Blackbox economy" of container data centers. And with a growing number of facilities-based data centers running out of power capacity, modular power expansion products have application well beyond the container sector.

Posted by Rich Miller May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

Layered Tech Talks Grid Computing

Layered Technologies CMO John Pozadzides recently visited the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and took some time out to speak with Michael Scherotter from Microsoft about LT’s Grid computing technology. This video is approximately 10 minutes.

For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Posted by Rich Miller May 16, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

May 15, 2008

Power Outage Halts Trading on ICE Exchange

A power outage at the data center for The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) led to a suspension of all commodities trading on ICE Thursday morning. The power failure in the company's primary data center in Chicago began at 10:30 a.m. ET and lasted for nearly an hour, ICE spokeswoman Kelly Loeffer told Investment News. Over-the-counter-trading markets resumed operations at 1:30 p.m., and the futures markets reopened at 1:50 p.m. ET. The company didn't provide further details about the cause of the outage.

ICE, a leading electronic energy marketplace, consolidated its primary data center operations in Chicago last year from existing data centers in London and Atlanta. ICE's data centers support electronic markets for ICE Futures, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) and ICE's global over-the-counter markets.

Posted by Rich Miller May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

Active Power Sells 'Power in a Box' Containers

Active Power, Inc. (ACPW) has a new customer for PowerHouse, its containerized power systems. Tesco PLC, one of Europe’s largest retailers, has ordered two PowerHouse containers for a data center north of London, where it will protect the facility against power sags, fluctuations and outages. The systems are expected to be delivered in the second half of 2008.

Each PowerHouse container system includes one CleanSource UPS 1500iC system, switchgear, a 1900 kVA diesel generator and fuel tanks. The containers will be positioned beside Tesco's existing data center facility. Both containers will be manufactured offsite, which will ensure minimal disruption at the Tesco facility and pose less risk to day-to-day business operations.

Posted by Rich Miller May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

A Look at Dell's Custom Cloud Server

Dell's cloud computing blog recently noted that "the unique needs of hyperscale customers demand a hands-on (and often very discreet) co-development approach." That discretion has perhaps allowed competitors, including IBM's iDataPlex server, to quickly achieve higher visibility in server design for cloud computing.

So this week, Dell has taken the wraps off one of its custom server designs for cloud and hyper scale computing, known as the XS23 Cloud Server.

Here's an overview from Todd Brannon of Dell Data Center Solutions: "This product was designed for a customer that needed maximum compute density, a healthy amount of local disk and, of course, lowest power draw possible," Brannon writes. "Our architecture team threw all that in the blender and out came a 2U standard rack mount chassis that houses four dual-socket servers and twelve 3.5” hot plug drives."

Posted by Rich Miller May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

Cisco's Mobile Emergency Data Center

One of the interesting potential applications for mobile data centers is disaster response: the ability to quickly deploy computing and communications infrastructure to assist local officials and relief workers in major disasters. This is one of the uses that has been advanced for container data centers. It turns out that Cisco (CSCO) developed several mobile data centers in the wake of hurricane Katrina, one of which saw action during the Southern California wildfires last fall.

In this video, Cisco's Bob Browning provides a tour of Cisco's Network Emergency Response Vehicle (NERV) and talks about how the NERV was used in the Harris Fire.

For more information, see our past coverage of Cisco. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive, the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Posted by Rich Miller May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

HP and EDS: Blockbuster or Bust?

Is HP's acquisition of EDS a major milestone for the company, or a strategic misstep? There was no shortage of opinions around the web yesterday. Here are some highlights:

InformationWeek notes that there will almost certainly be significant data center consolidation. In 2006, HP announced one of the most ambitious projects yet, consolidating 85 data centers worldwide into six larger centers located in Atlanta, Houston and Austin.

Nick Carr says "cloud computing promises to turn many traditional systems-outsourcing businesses into pure commodity businesses - undifferentiated utility services."

Drue Reeves at The Burton Group reflects on the competitive implications for Dell. "From a services perspective, the move by HP leaves Dell with few options to get into the services race. About the only possible acquisitions left are Unisys (already a Dell services partner), Accenture, Computer Science Corp, and Perot Systems. Accenture is probably the cream of the crop, but their price – thanks to HP’s move – may be more than Dell wants to pay at this point."

Posted by Rich Miller May 15, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

May 14, 2008

Icahn Moves to Unseat Yahoo's Board

The drama surrounding the future of Yahoo continues. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is launching a proxy contest to unseat Yahoo Inc.'s board of directors, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday, citing "a person close to the matter." The move is aimed at pressuring Yahoo (YHOO) to reach out to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to re-start sale discussions. Icahn plans to nominate 10 directors to replace Yahoo's board before a deadline Thursday, the Journal said. Icahn's nominees will reportedly include former Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Frank Biondi, who has worked with Icahn on other proxy fights.

See additional analysis at Reuters and Silicon Alley Insider.

Posted by Rich Miller May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

Roundup: Twitter, Emerson, Premier Technical

Here's a roundup of some quick data center news links for today:

A number of prominent bloggers have advanced strategies for decentralizing Twitter. I don't recall Twitter asking to be decentralized, but the service's recent performance problems have invited speculation about alternatives. Against that backdrop, Alex Iskold at ReadWriteWeb takes a look at the architecture challenge faced by twitter and similar light streaming services, and whether the cloud can improve upon relational database approaches.

Emerson Process Management has announced plans to build a $12 million data center in Marshalltown, Iowa. The center will back up information from Emerson operations across the world, according to the Cedar Valley Courier.

Premier Technical Services of Luray, Virginia will open a data center in Page County, creating 96 new jobs. The $16.5 million data center that will incorporate "green design," and the company plans to apply for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the new facility.

Posted by Rich Miller May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

11.5 Billion Video Streams in March

More than 11.5 billion videos were streamed in the U.S. in March, according to a new data from ComScore (via Contentinople). That's a 13 percent increase from February, and up 64 percent from one year ago. The average online viewer clocked in 235 minutes of video, or about four hours. See the ComScore web site for additional details.

The data center business is doing its part to contribute to the growth of online video, as can be seen at our DCK video archive, the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube, and also at Data Center Journal's new DataCenter.tv.

Posted by Rich Miller May 14, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter

May 16, 2008

A Look at Modular Power Expansion

May 15, 2008

Power Outage Halts Trading on ICE Exchange

May 14, 2008

Icahn Moves to Unseat Yahoo's Board

MORE STORIES FROM THIS MONTH: