[Beowulf] In the news again HPC in Iceland

[Vincent Diepeveen]

Typical German marketing.

Say A, do B.

Knowing how German industry works, they probably will deploy one  
computer there when they sell a few more BMW's in Iceland.
In the meantime their top secret crunching runs on browncoals in  
Germany of course.

A lot cheaper than 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour browncoals are.

An article today in the newspaper suggested German Minister Altmaier  
announced more or less he wants to quit solar panel
subsidies, and for now announces to dramatically lower it,
which of course in combination with getting rid of nuclear reactors  
means they're gonna burn even more coals in Germany,
as *somewhere* they need this huge amount of energy for their  
industry. We're speaking about a 50000 megawatt or so.

Usually they calculate with householeds and ignore the 90-95% of  
energy that companies and especially industry consumes...

Germany is world champion in saying A and doing B.

On Sep 21, 2012, at 3:52 PM, Prentice Bisbal wrote:

> Another news article about datacenters and HPC in Iceland.
> --
> Prentice
>
> http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-09-20/ 
> bmw_finds_cool_locale_for_hpc_cluster.html
> September 20, 2012
>
> BMW Finds Cool Locale for HPC Cluster
> Robert Gelber
>
> Automaker BMW is getting ready to deploy an HPC cluster to run  
> simulations for designing it next-generation ultimate driving  
> machines. As with any supercomputing installation, this one is  
> bound to consume plenty of energy, which translates to high  
> operational expenses. So the car company decided to search for an  
> efficient and environmentally friendly plan to manage their system.  
> They settled on locating the machine at Verne Global’s Ásbrú  
> datacenter in Iceland.
>
> September 20, 2012
> BMW Finds Cool Locale for HPC Cluster
>
> Robert Gelber
>
> Automaker BMW is getting ready to deploy an HPC cluster to run  
> simulations for designing it next-generation ultimate driving  
> machines. As with any supercomputing installation, this one is  
> bound to consume plenty of energy, which translates to high  
> operational expenses. So the car company decided to search for an  
> efficient and environmentally friendly plan to manage their system.  
> They settled on locating the machine at Verne Global’s Ásbrú  
> datacenter in Iceland.
>
> The country has become an interesting option for datacenter users  
> because of its perpetually cool climate and cheap energy.  
> Electricity in the island nation costs roughly 4.3 cents per  
> kilowatt-hour, thanks to an abundance of renewable energy sources.  
> The country generates most of its electricity from glacier-fed  
> rivers and geothermal vents. Given these resources, it’s no  
> surprise that Verne Global decided to setup their large scale  
> computing facility at an abandoned NATO Air Force base located in  
> the city of Keflavík.
>
> Data Center Knowledge reported that Mario Mueller, BMW’s vice  
> president of IT infrastructure and chair at the Open Data Center  
> Alliance (ODCA), brought up the company’s plans at this year’s  
> Intel Developer Forum. The car company will be Verne Global’s fifth  
> customer after CCP Games, Datapipe, Opin Kerfi and GreenQloud.  It  
> will also follow ODCA usage models to guide the cluster’s build.
>
> This is certainly not the first time a company or organization has  
> considered alternative approaches to providing energy and cooling  
> to a large computing installation. Apple is utilizing solar panels  
> and methane gas from a local landfill to generate electricity for  
> their iCloud datacenter. The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)  
> deployed a top 10 cluster in an oil submersion cooling system and  
> Facebook built one of the world’s most efficient datacenters in  
> Prineville Oregon using designs from the Open Compute Project.The  
> country has become an interesting option for datacenter users  
> because of its perpetually cool climate and cheap energy.  
> Electricity in the island nation costs roughly 4.3 cents per  
> kilowatt-hour, thanks to an abundance of renewable energy sources.  
> The country generates most of its electricity from glacier-fed  
> rivers and geothermal vents. Given these resources, it’s no  
> surprise that Verne Global decided to setup their large scale  
> computing facility at an abandoned NATO Air Force base located in  
> the city of Keflavík.
>
> Data Center Knowledge reported that Mario Mueller, BMW’s vice  
> president of IT infrastructure and chair at the Open Data Center  
> Alliance (ODCA), brought up the company’s plans at this year’s  
> Intel Developer Forum. The car company will be Verne Global’s fifth  
> customer after CCP Games, Datapipe, Opin Kerfi and GreenQloud.  It  
> will also follow ODCA usage models to guide the cluster’s build.
>
> This is certainly not the first time a company or organization has  
> considered alternative approaches to providing energy and cooling  
> to a large computing installation. Apple is utilizing solar panels  
> and methane gas from a local landfill to generate electricity for  
> their iCloud datacenter. The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)  
> deployed a top 10 cluster in an oil submersion cooling system and  
> Facebook built one of the world’s most efficient datacenters in  
> Prineville Oregon using designs from the Open Compute Project.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin  
> Computing
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit  
> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf