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Data Storage On The High Seas

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 September 2008, 12:05 CDT

Google is considering a move to deploy barges anchored seven miles offshore that would house supercomputers operating the company’s Internet search engines.

These “water-based data centers”, which can be the size of a football field, would reduce costs by using wave energy to power and cool the computers.  And as an added benefit, the offshore status of these data centers would make them exempt from property taxes.

An online report by The Times cites Google’s patent application, which says “Computing centers are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away.”

The growing number of data centers required to manage the vast flows of information generated by the massive numbers of websites has prompted companies to consider revolutionary new ideas to reduce operating costs.

The supercomputers in these data centers require enormous amounts of electricity to make sure they do not become overheated.  Data centers consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2005. Experts estimate that by 2020, the carbon footprint of computers running the Internet will be larger than that the entire airline industry.   

Many firms are looking at ways to address the problem. Microsoft has investigated building a data center in the cold climate of Siberia, while Sun Microsystems has considered plans to move its systems down an abandoned coalmine, using the ground water as a coolant.  Sun said the move could save $9 million in annual energy costs, and would require only half the power the data center would have if it operated at ground level.

Technology experts called Google’s “computer navy” was a clever, unexpected solution. 

“It’s really innovative, outside-the-box thinking,” Rich Miller, the author of the datacentreknowledge.com blog, told The Times.

Google did not disclose when the barges might set sail.

“We file patent applications on a variety of ideas. Some of those ideas later mature into real products, services or infrastructure, some don’t,” it said.

“The huge question raised by this proposal is how to keep the barges safe,” Mr. Miller said, referring to concerns about whether Google’s proposed barge could stand up to events such as a hurricane and other disasters.

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On the Net:

• Google

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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