Floating data center reduces cost and power consumption
This latest data center design will involve a lot of water, but not in the usual way - it is a floating data center on the water.
Since water is the most important component to keep data center equipment cool, this led an enterprise to directly choose to build its latest floating data center on the water.
Nautilus Data Technologies Inc. recently launched an aquatic data center. The company in Pleasanton, California, completed a proof of concept earlier this year on a 110 foot ship at the Naval Shipyard in Mari Island, California.
The production data center is being built on a 230 foot barge, US server There will be 30000 square feet of blank space on multiple floors, with the ability to mix and match up to 600000 kilowatts of rack power per rack. It is expected that it will be officially put into operation within six months.
The water pump of Nautilus data center will cool IT equipment through a huge self-service cleaning bucket. During the discharge, the water temperature will rise by five degrees, but in the proof of concept stage, it usually only rises by about two degrees, Said Arnold Magcale, CEO and founder of Nautilus. With regard to water heating, there are no environmental or regulatory issues. Only if the water is heated to 20 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, it will be subject to review by agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"What we are moving is water, not air." Magale said, pointing out that Nautilus's "floating data center will not have any computer room air conditioning (CRAC) or air processing. The company estimates that its data center reduces energy consumption by 30% compared with the data center built on land.
first, The theoretical power utilization efficiency (PUE) of the floating data center officially calculated by Nautilus can reach 1.066. Each rack is 10 kilowatts, Magale said that during the proof of concept phase, The PUE value reached 1.045. At that time, the concept verification reached 38 kW for 48 hours, The PUE value is 1.02, he said.
A typical data center consumes 130 million gallons of water every year, but the floating data center from Nautilus will not use it - all its water will return to the sea.
"This is a very interesting method, and it is only in its early stage," said Jason dePreaux, a data center, cloud computing and IT infrastructure analyst at IHS Inc., headquartered in Englewood, Colorado.
DePreaux said that in the next few years, floating data centers may break down niche markets. However, in at least three to five years, the workload of a measurable data center is unlikely to leave the land data center, DePreaux has not been introduced to the Nautilus project.
"In my experience, the change of data center takes a long time," he said.
For most hosting providers, new concepts such as water data center are too radical, he added. Projects like this need to show a much higher ROI than traditional land data centers to attract customers, De Preaux said.
New data centers are attracted to areas with free natural cooling, and eliminating CRAC cooling can really save a lot of money, he said. He believes that Nautilus's project will become a branch of the container type data center market, accounting for 1% to 2% of the total market
IT equipment and water cannot be mixed
The initial focus of potential customers on Nautilus' projects may revolve around the relationship between IT hardware and water.
"There is also an annoying problem of water and electricity." DePreaux said that although most data centers use cooling water to cool IT equipment, there are also chip level liquid cooling.
One of its potential customers will be the US military, De Preaux said.
The figure above shows the floating data center of Nautilus Data Technologies.
The floating data center has not been widely used, US server Because few enterprises combine data centers with marine expertise, Magale said.
"It needs a fairly complete plan to make it work," said Magale, a former member of the Special Forces and still a diver.
Nautilus's patented data center is not similar to Google's floating data center plan. The latter network giant's patent plan includes the use of wave power generation to supply the power required by the data center. The company also has a floating platform for marketing activities, and some people have speculated that it is a floating data center.
"The way they do it is completely different," Magale said.
The aquatic data center runs Nautilus' proprietary cloud orchestration software and forecast data center infrastructure management software, which can use artificial intelligence to truly achieve unattended facilities.
More floating data centers are coming
There is no shortage of barges to support Nautilus's future data center, Magale said. Its suppliers have 42 barges in stock - many of which can be used to rebuild data centers across the Pacific with steel on the Bay Bridge between Auckland and San Francisco. Texas and Louisiana also provide barges, he said.
The biggest advantage provided by Nautilus data center is that it eliminates CRAC cooling, according to Clive, co-founder and service director of Quocirca Ltd. Lombarton said.
"In other words, any data center that still needs to be equipped with a dedicated machine room air-conditioning unit CRAC is so backward that it has been wrong from the beginning of design," he said.
However, in addition to its many benefits, floating data centers also have a negative side. Determining and protecting the boundaries of an aquatic data center is much more difficult than on land. In addition, it is more difficult to operate power and data connections in multiple directions, and it is also difficult to maintain the "building", especially the part below the water surface, he said.
An earthquake hit about 15 miles away, and the water cushion helped reduce the impact of the earthquake, he said.
Nautilus data center will provide connection to AT&T Comcast, 21Vianet and Verizon are negotiating to transfer the dark fiber to the data center and create an Internet switching platform. Magale said that if the barge had to move, the customer could continue to connect via VSAT satellites.
Nautilus officials declined to disclose the specific pricing, but said it was based on the benchmark interest rate per kilowatt hour in Silicon Valley - currently between $120 and $145. The latest Nautilus data center will be powered by PGE. Reducing PUE will also help "bring about significant cost savings," Magale said.
Nautilus has not yet finalized the exact location of the facility to produce the data center, but Magale said that it would probably be located about 70 miles away from Silicon Valley in the United States. Nautilus is also visiting some places in Texas and Virginia, as well as some international places, including Ireland and Taiwan, China.
The company said that its commitment to customers involved proof of concept and other aspects of "active exploration". The floating data center will include 200 independent cabinets, totaling 8 MW.
"Its design is multi tenant or single customer mode," Magale added, while Nautilus will not rent single cabinets or racks.
