[Beowulf] More about those underwater data centers

[C Bergström]

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


On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 4:50 AM C Bergström <cbergstrom at pathscale.com> wrote:

> Building cooling maybe.. Then again in the UK I doubt the need would be so
> strong. The building from aerial view is ying/yang so it's probably just
> design
>
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 4:46 AM Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf <
> beowulf at beowulf.org> wrote:
>
>> Yes. Something exactly like that! Is that what that pond is used for? I
>> would expect that is much larger than what is needed for a typical data
>> center.
>>
>> Prentice
>>
>> On 11/05/2018 01:35 PM, John Hearns via Beowulf wrote:
>>
>> > Honestly, though, I think most of this is moot. With direct-contact
>> liquid cooling and warm-water cooling, I think for most data centers,
>> cooling to ambient air should be adequate. For  >places where that isn't
>> enough, I would think a shallow, man-made cooling pond on premises would be
>> an adequate heat sink, without having to go all the way to the ocean. By
>> keeping >it shallow, at night when it cools off, the pond could dump a lot
>> of its heat to the atmosphere.
>>
>> Something like this perhaps?
>> https://youtu.be/0gCXfWCLZAA
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 5 Nov 2018 at 16:01, Prentice Bisbal via Beowulf <
>> beowulf at beowulf.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Prentice
>>>
>>> On 11/05/2018 06:02 AM, Stu Midgley wrote:
>>>
>>> As far as I can tell, they are just using the salt water to reject the
>>> heat to.  How they get the heat from the cpu/hot bits to the water is not
>>> clearly stated...
>>>
>>> A passive heat exchanger would make energy sense... but would cost a
>>> bomb in engineering...  maybe direct fluid cooling (asetek) with a
>>> heat-exchanger to the salt water?
>>>
>>> Either way, its stupid.  They could just easily pump the cool salt water
>>> from the ocean into a DC, reject heat to it using the same methods... and
>>> pump it back to the ocean.  Since no real delta in height, it would be
>>> efficient in energy.
>>>
>>> The issue with this would be the increased maintenance cost of the
>>> equipment pumping the salt water to the the DC, do to the corrosion from
>>> the salt water, and overall 'dirtiness' of the saltwater. A better approach
>>> would be to have a closed loop of treated freshwater going from the data
>>> center to the a heat exchanger submerged in the sea. This should reduce
>>> maintenance costs for the system.
>>>
>>> Honestly, though, I think most of this is moot. With direct-contact
>>> liquid cooling and warm-water cooling, I think for most data centers,
>>> cooling to ambient air should be adequate. For places where that isn't
>>> enough, I would think a shallow, man-made cooling pond on premises would be
>>> an adequate heat sink, without having to go all the way to the ocean. By
>>> keeping it shallow, at night when it cools off, the pond could dump a lot
>>> of its heat to the atmosphere.
>>>
>>>
>>> OR... just use a boat...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 2:27 PM <jaquilina at eagleeyet.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Probably a stupid question here,
>>>>
>>>> What is the advantage of using salty sea water lets say over for
>>>> example
>>>> mineral oil? I have seen on you tube these guys showing that a pc will
>>>> still run in a fish tank and all components submerged in mineral oil?
>>>> Yes it will be messier to change components but would the use of
>>>> mineral
>>>> oil be more efficient?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2018-11-04 14:10, Gerald Henriksen wrote:
>>>> > On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 18:27:05 +0000, you wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> I’m not sure there’s a huge population of Xcloud-Xbox gamers in
>>>> >> Orkney.  There's not much daylight this time of year, of course, so
>>>> >> maybe that's what those Orcadians are up to.
>>>> >
>>>> > Likely just a convenient place for a second test unit.
>>>> >
>>>> > In a way this is just an extension of the idea/product Sun came up wth
>>>> > where they put a datacentre in a shipping container with the idea that
>>>> > you could quickly get the datacentre where it was needed.
>>>> >
>>>> > While I wouldn't say this won't fail, I think there is a lot of
>>>> > attraction to the concept given not just the time lag do build a
>>>> > traditional data centre (mentioned in the article), but even the cost
>>>> > of real estate in many/most places people live these days.  Do you,
>>>> > for one example, want to pay NYC rents or just throw a bunch of pods
>>>> > in the Hudson?
>>>> >
>>>> > I guess once you accept the idea that we no longer maintain these
>>>> > datacentres in the traditional way - we now just let hardware fail in
>>>> > place and ignore it until it's time to replace all the hardware -
>>>> > moving to smaller sealed units doesn't seem to strange.
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr Stuart Midgley
>>> sdm900 at gmail.com
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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