Hasta La Gadget!

Big data is big money, so when the power goes out and data centers go offline, companies like eBay stand to hemorrhage revenue. Which is why the mega auction e-tailer’s been hard at work setting up a “greener” data center in South Jordan, Utah to avoid costly and unpredictable blackouts. The now operational site incorporates thirty fuel cells developed by Bloom Energy, a company with roots in NASA’s Mars program, that turn natural gas into electricity via an electro-chemical process. What’s more, eBay, using recovered energy generation technology provided by Ormat, is also attempting to offset its carbon footprint by harvesting the “heat waste” generated from natural gas pipelines and turning that into energy for its Utah site. Barring any unforeseen power failures, the company’s green data center won’t ever have to rely on the local grid. And that independence should ensure eBay users keep bidding and buying and filling the company’s coffers.

Filed under: Science

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Source: Wired, GigaOm

Facebook’s first European data center in Luleå, Sweden (near the Arctic Circle) is now online, and thus far it’s the only facility that’s exclusively using servers the company itself designed. Similar to the social network’s North Carolina complex that served as testing ground for its outdoor air-cooling configuration, the Swedish facility takes advantage of the region’s frigid winds. Excess heat produced by the machines is then routed to offices to keep employees warm in the chilly region. The firm claims the 900,000-square-foot center is powered entirely by hydroelectric energy — a source so reliable that Facebook saw it fit to scale down the number of backup generators by more than 70 percent. With an average power usage efficiency (PUE) of 1.07, the servers should consume 1.07 watts of energy for each watt they need to function pointing to minimal energy loss. Now that the Luleå installation is complete and operational, the company can focus on building its $1.5 billion megastructure (its biggest data center yet) in Altoona, Iowa.

[Image credit: Facebook]

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Via: Ars Technica, The Register

Source: Facebook

Facebook has already set up shop in North Carolina and Oregon, but it’s heading to Iowa for its next — and biggest — data center. According to the Des Moines Register, the town of Altoona will be home to a 1.4-million-square-foot facility (code-named Catapult), and it will reportedly be the “most technologically advanced center in the world.” Why Altoona, you ask? The city is already home to several data hubs, as its fiber-optic cable system, access to power and water utilities and affordable land are big draws for companies. Facebook will complete project Catapult in two $500 million phases, though the entire cost will reportedly ring in at $1.5 billion. The social network is also seeking wind energy production tax credits, which is no doubt connected to its Open Compute Project for promoting energy efficiency. That’s all we know so far; suffice to say a center this big won’t be built overnight.

Filed under: Internet, Facebook

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Des Moines Register

Curious as to the effect that your poking wars are having on the planet? Facebook is outing power and water usage data for its Oregon and North Carolina data centers to show off its sustainability chops. The information is updated in near-real time, and the company will add its Swedish facility to the charts as soon as it’s built. The stats for the Forest City, NC plant show a very efficient power usage effectiveness ratio of 1.09 — thanks, in part, to that balmy (North) Carolina air.

Filed under: Internet, Facebook

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Via: GigaOm

Source: Facebook, Open Compute Project

As much as it’s important to have every component of a PC stuck together in a laptop, that same monolithic strategy is a major liability for server clusters: if one part breaks or grows obsolete, it can drag down everything else. Facebook and its Open Compute Project partners have just unveiled plans to loosen things up at the datacenter. A prototype, Atom-based rackmount server from Quanta Computer uses 100Gbps silicon photonics from Intel to connect parts at full speed, anywhere on the rack. Facebook has also garnered support for a new system-on-chip connection standard, rather affectionately named Group Hug, that would let owners swap in new mini systems from any vendor through PCI Express cards. The combined effect doesn’t just simplify repairs and upgrades — it lets companies build the exact servers they need without having to scrap other crucial elements in the process. There’s no definite timeframe for when we’ll see modular servers put to work, but the hope is that a cluster’s foundations will stay relevant for years instead of months.

Continue reading Facebook’s Open Compute Project splits up monolithic servers with help from Intel, more

Filed under: Intel, Facebook

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Source: Open Compute Project