The Google Navy 259
theodp writes "Is Google preparing to launch its own Navy? In its just-published application for a patent on the Water-Based Data Center, Google envisions a world where 'computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then 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 from computers in the data center.' And you thought The Onion was joking when it reported on Google's Fleet of Naval Warships!"
Cooling (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Funny)
GoogleWay (Score:5, Funny)
No.
GoogleBoat will GoogleFloat to a (Google)Safe (Google)Location.
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Funny)
Google Earth sees the pirates before they get close. I'm not sure what Google Boat does then, but it may involve ninjas.
Ahem... that would be Google Ninjas(TM).
... but they're still in beta.
DT
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
Ahem...that would be Google Grasshoppers(TM).
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia's "Bazalt" naval weapons manufacturer recently proposed arming commercial vessels with automatic grenade launchers to deter pirates. There is an idea for Google! They can start with grenades and later upgrade to anti-ship missiles. Or just build an aircraft carrier and save on future operating costs and upgrades :)
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
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Bah. I could see a national government claiming that the ships are inside their territorial waters and therefore owe some sort of tax.
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You don't want to mess with those. They've got spiders that will ultimately find you, no matter what your URL is.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/16/world/main3371634.shtml?source=RSSattr=World_3371634 [cbsnews.com]
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Funny)
That's unpossible. More pirates would cause a corresponding drop in global climate temperature.
Ramen.
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somehow you think that it won't pollute the area that it is in?
remember that heat can be considered pollution as well.
i live close to San Onofre nuclear power plant, and the hot discharge from the plant has completely changed the flora and fauna along that section of the coast.
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I think it can be fairly said that the heat generated by a datacenter, no matter how large or powerful, probably just doesn't compare to the heat generated by sustained nuclear fission.
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Water serves as a buffer , it can take in a lot of heat.
I don't think a few datacenters in the ocean is going to make any difference. When exposed to air it's the same amount anyway. And if they can save on energy this way , it will probably reduce pollution in the long run.
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You can do the same thing by building a datacenter near water. You don't get the wave motion stuff but you would get the ability to use seawater as coolant.
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Yes, talk about a new generation of water cooling!
Heat pollution (Score:3, Informative)
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Yes, but it would do so more efficiently. For example, it can take 1 watt to dissipate 2 watts of heat using a heat pump. So that's equal to 3 watts of energy placed into our environment for every 2 watts of work. Now by just pumping ocean water you can likely get away with only 0.1 watts used to dissipate every 2 watts of heat. So the difference is 2.1 watts vs 3 watts of energy placed into the environment - ocean cooling is better.
Now there is one other point to consider. With ocean cooling you can n
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Google - bad for the environment.... I never thought I'd see the day...
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Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
First, sea water temperatures vary greatly depending on the part of the world you're operating in. It's not uncommon for surface sea water temps to be in the 85F(30C)+ range for most areas where you're likely to moor a ship. The AC units that we used were barely able to keep the small server room that I ran cool under those conditions.
Second, the motion of the ship caused premature drive failures due to the pitch and roll of the ship. This could be alleviated with solid state drives, but that's a bit off for a data center at the moment.
Lastly, bandwidth and latency are problematic. Sure, Google could just buy a satellite, but they can't modify the 2000ms latency. Depending on ship size and sea conditions, keeping a satellite lock may be an issue as well due to roll.
All I can really say to Google is, good luck with all that!
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It'll probably be less of a ship and more of a stabilized floating platform, like an oil rig, if they plan to use "wave power". But cooling would be more efficient off the coast of California, Northern Europe, and Japan than places with bathwater seas like India.
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Have you considered mounting the drives vertically, with the axis pointing along the ship's longitudinal axis? I imagine that 7200 or 10,000 RPM disks would have quite a bit of precession, so maybe mounting them such that the axis with the greater perturbation is the same as the disk's axis would mitigate that a little.
Hey everyone they're GREEN! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now focus on that apart from the fact that it would also allow them to shift the jurisdiction of their operations when laws change in specific regions.
Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters. If any of these are launched, shall we start the pool on how long until the "Google fighting Piracy" joke headlines?
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Google could never bring enough might to bear to claim complete and utter isolation from national laws just by motoring into international waters. Any country with might would simply seize control if provoked. It's really hard to fall back on "law" when you are facing the very same people that write them.
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I think he means to defend the ship vs actual ocean pirates, not sovereign powers.
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Ohhhh the year was 1778
How i wish i was in sherbrooke nowwww.
A letter of marque came from the king for the scummiest vessel i'd ever seen!
wait ... Topic....
True but government sanction piracy would have to consist of smaller forces to maintain plausible deniability. The kind of piracy you're describing is the kind i can see getting it's ass kicked if google hired a security force with the kind of revenue they'd have to be making to justify these kinds of ships to begin with.
The only question after that woul
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Yes, but they can still up-anchor and leave the current port of call when it becomes obvious that the current locations laws are not as amenable as somewhere else (taking into account cost of moving the ship of course). For international waters, i dont see them thumbing their noses at any super powers but they can avoid quite a bit of red-tape (sometimes justified red-tape) by stationing in international waters.
As long as they dont step on big toes, then the worst they have to worry about would be actual pi
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Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters.
That's one long fiber-optic cord you are proposing. Somehow I doubt people would put up with satellite's latency.
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Depends on the distance and the location. Could always work out a series of GoogleBuoys with permanent landlines as underwater cable that they alternate between. or perhaps a high power microwave bridge in a region where theres little issue with native fauna.
Just because the direct land->ship link is what they're describing doesn't mean it's the only option.
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Or they could just anchor out in international waters and not be under anybody's jurisdiction. The only fuzzy bit would be where the cables connected to, but if they anchored in the right spot, they could probably connect to several nations simultaneously.
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So: [slashdot.org]
Hell, fill them with enough guns and they could just put them in international waters.
That and.. [slashdot.org]
Could always work out a series of GoogleBuoys with permanent landlines as underwater cable that they alternate between
I hear ya. ... well.. read ya.
More reason? (Score:2)
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Oh, I think they'll be more likely to attempt to avoid taxes than censorship. Based on past performance.
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Oh, I think they'll be more likely to attempt to avoid taxes than censorship. Based on past performance.
Good on them! A little competition is good for all involved.
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Re:More reason? (Score:5, Funny)
I think they can manage 12 nano meters
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Is there more than just being eco-friendly to this? I can see this being used to avoid taxes, censorship laws, etc.
Theyd have to be located 12nm from any shore to be in international waters.
Twelve nanometres? Thats not too bad.
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Isn't that bad for electronics? (Score:5, Informative)
My father-in-law worked as a linesman for AT&T about 30 years at a beach town in southern New Jersey. He told me that they had to replace electrnoic components almost twice as quickly as more inland areas because of the more corrosive saltwater air.
If this is a real effect, I imagine that it will be difficult to prevent on a ship in the ocean.
Re:Isn't that bad for electronics? (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, I know people, in the town I have just moved to, who live only tens of meters from the sea who have had no problems - but they have a massive rampart between them and the sea that (I think) blocks the spray.
Ships are going to be tricky but designs meant to keep salt spray out may be workable.
Re:Isn't that bad for electronics? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like the US Navy, every cruise line, and countless shipbuilders haven't ever put a computer on a seagoing vessel before.
"May be workable"? I'd say it's been solved many times over.
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The Navy isn't comparing the costs of those computers to computers in a data center somewhere on land.
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Bizarre idea I had was to seal the data center on the ship,
and have the equivalent of decontamination chambers to enter
the room.
Then lower a deep sea intake line down to where the water is
about 5 degree celsius, and pumps it in to heat exchangers
to cool the server room.
I used to work on heat exchangers when I worked on RADAR in
the Navy, we used it to cool our RADAR but we didn't go for
the deep much colder water.
In theory the server room could be devoid of oxygen so oxidation
of contacts could not take place,
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I doubt Google cares, they throw away any servers older than 3 years or so (dead or not).
Re:Isn't that bad for electronics? (Score:4, Insightful)
[citation needed]
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Google datacenters are pretty much disposable today. Build it once, run it for X years, then dump the entire thing. Repairs are less and less useful.
Each rack could be an independently sealed bubble (airtight) with a few wires coming out the top for power and network connectivity, then hang the entire rack into a flooded compartment of the boat -- say a catamaran with a protective mesh bottom.
With cooling requirements taken care of, powering the computers becomes quite a bit easier.
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That's possible, but that's definitely something which can be dealt with.
If that were really that kind of a problem, the Navy would have real issues. Just seal up the room and clean the air when people go in. Cooling isn't an issue because they'd be doing water cooling anyways, and that's through sealed piping.
It would probably cost less than what it currently costs to keep the temperature down. More likely than not doing all that would be overkill anyways.
SS Google (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sigh, I really wish people would stop with this meme. Compared to a lot of other countries, we're not that bad. I mean try posting history lessons about WWII in Europe or Japan. Or anything which isn't particularly flattering to the government in China. I'm sure that's not even a comprehensive list.
But, the suggestion that the US is worse than other countries, is naive at best. Realistically, the US government just gets more focus than other nations do.
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First off, you're exactly right that compared to many many countries, America is not THAT bad. Also, you're exactly right that the reason the US receives so much focus is the fact that America has been a huge influence on the world at large this past century or so.
What saddens me is America used to be a place that believed in certain values as being sacrosanct and would fight to the death to defend those values. The americans at those times would follow their values regardless of what was thought of them or
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Be careful when swinging around allegations about Europe. I can't think of any large, western European country subject to revisionism (unless you're a holocaust denier, in which case I'd class you as the revisionist). In Britain if anything our history lessons are more an extended rant on how crappy we were to everyone else and ourselves.
This is the continent with the Netherlands and Scandinavia on it, remember. While Britain, France and Germany have their foibles, you don't get anything like you get with J
Re:12 mile note... (Score:2)
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Regardless of who owns that cable reaches a country it and the signals are under their the countries control. The only real way to get around the whole thing is to launch your own internet communications satilite.
Not really you just use a fresh water cooling coil in the cold sea water.
they still largely would be (Score:2)
Assuming Google remains a United States company, has U.S. bank accounts, does business in the U.S., has its employees and managers on U.S. soil instead of moving them all to the boat too, and so on, it'll be pretty easily subject to U.S. laws.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Pirate Internet (Score:2)
Old aircraft carriers would work (Score:4, Funny)
But there's the matter of pizza delivery.
Re:Old aircraft carriers would work (Score:4, Funny)
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A great idea! (Score:2)
And then let the ships circle around the edge of the Pacific ocean, picking up IT workers along the way to drop off in America.
Hmmmmn...
Where have I heard that before [wikipedia.org]?
Overreaching? (Score:2)
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No this is brilliant. First, the cooling and power center will probably save Google massive amounts of money. Second and more importantly, this will allow Google to put its data centers in international waters and outside prying U.S. or other eyes.
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Every company dies. But not every company truly lives.
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This gives a whole new meaning to offshoring (Score:3, Interesting)
Google Earth? (Score:5, Funny)
So presumably these ships will connect through a series of Google-Sats in geo-stationary orbits, linking to a Google-hub in each country. And behold, Google shall inherit the Earth. Thankfully, a network of Microsoft terrorists will be able to track then using Virtual Earth and infect the servers with Windows, thus rendering them useless and saving us all.
It will need to work better then windows for warsh (Score:2)
It will need to work better then windows for warships to be a good idea.
Not only will your data be logged (Score:2, Funny)
It will be water logged!
Neal Stephenson (Score:2)
I'm not sure which reference is more appropriate: Crytponomicon data haven, or The Raft in Snowcrash...
No, William Gibson (Score:2)
Stephenson? Pfft!
A better reference might be to Maas-Neotek from Mona Lisa Overdrive and other books.
I, for one, welcome... (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously, am I the only one who sees an inevitable path from "offshore datacenters" to "cyberpunk future where major corporations like Google declare sovereignty"?
They're not the first ... (Score:3, Informative)
Prior-Art (Score:2)
Ships - been done
Wave motion electrical generation - been done
Data Center - been done
Marine Cables - been done
Self contained electrical generating stations connected to shore by cables and monitored by onboard computers that also store info - been done
Do I detect the filing patents for the purposes of doing EVIL??
Right Direction maybe better idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Point taken on water temp, security and connections. Why not just have a submersible barge, and drop down to the ocean floor.
Makes it easy to moor. Fiber just lays on the ocean floor. Improved Security, and the water will be much cooler. Sort of a barge made like a giant heatsink. Mount the processors to the hull.
When the barge looses enough hardware, just raise it back up, service it and drop it back down.
Also reduced problems with being pitched around causing lost disk drives. Hurricanes? No problem.
My guess why they're computing offshore: No laws! (Score:2)
Seriously. I would not want to work 1000 miles from my home on that "ship" and outside of any laws, because if anyone complains about payment or freedom, they could shoot him and dump him in the water. (Look for sharks first, so there's no body floating on the sea... or edit Google earth ;)
And only the US navy (thinking the world is theirs anyway, which it probably is... :( ) could stop them. But would they? I mean Google has money... and power... and soon it's own country with its own laws.
I guess first th
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>P.S.: Yeah, my English is that bad. How good is your Luxemburgish? :P
Ganz gutt, firwat?
Re:My guess why they're computing offshore: No law (Score:2)
There are still laws, even in international waters.
plus countries are extending their 'boundaries' more and more, to the point there will be no true international waters left.
And don't forget if you are in International waters, you are on your own. Don't expect the coast guard to drop by to help when you get attacked.
I'm going to be a pirate! (Score:2)
Wow, I sank Google! :-)
Sun Server Containers (Score:2)
Confirmed: Google DOES Have Containers (Score:2)
Ripe for *real* piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like easy pickings for a band of real pirates.
Reading between the lines (Score:2)
Google envisions a world where 'computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body
...outside the jurisdiction of national intelligence services,...
A patent means.... nada. the math (Score:4, Interesting)
Something like 99.4% of patents never make a cent.
This one is particularly loopy.
Let's do the math. Let's say Google buys the Queen Mary. 80,000 tons. Let's say they anchor it someplace with an average wave height of 20 feet, wave period of 10 seconds. Raising 80,000 tons at 2 feet per second takes about 160,000 horsepower. Hmmm, that's very close to the original steaming capacity of the QM. In watts, that's about 120 megawatts, about ten times more than you'd need if you packed the ship with servers. Okay, so that looks easily doable.
Problem is, buying the electricity would be much cheaper. 12 megawatts will cost you about $700 an hour. Can you run and maintain and pay on the principal and pay salaries and insurance on $700/hour? No, not a couple of powers of ten.
Re:Okay, it's a neat idea ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Google (or Microsoft, or Apple, or..) doesn't patent every single idea they come up with now, someone else will sue them for it later on. If you were sued as often as Google [google.com], you'd learn to CYA every chance you could get. Such insanity is the price of doing business in the USA.
So owning patents (frivolous or not) is neutral. Releasing patents to the public is good. Suing others over frivolous patents is evil.
Google may not be doing "good", but they're still following their mantra.
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... but patenting it? WTF?
Sorry, Google, but the patent really doesn't fit with "don't be evil." Do you guys remember that phrase?
even worse, it's a submarine patent!
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First of all, so what?
Second of all, I don't think you'll find a google data center to be on par with a nuclear power plant. They might have some heat to dissipate but the water isn't exactly going to be boiling.
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I was just thinking the same thing. By keeping their data centers on international waters, they need to stop worrying about DMCA takedown letters, in a way. They'll just filter the corresponding country's IPs from accessing the corresponding content.
Alright, mateys, let's Go on the account and raise the Jolly Roger. Yarrr!!