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!"
Very good idea from a cooling point of view I suppose, the a/c bills for a big datacenter can be huge. But enough to offset the cost of operating an entire ship..?
Add to that wave power, custom built ships just for this purpose anchored in place, fiber connection to the mainland and it may well prove to be cheaper over the long term than a land-based air conditioned building that requires lots of power. Air conditioning is a huge part of the long term cost of a datacenter, using water cooling with abundant supplies of water seems like a very green way of doing things.
Not to mention that there's no property tax (being taxed to occupy real estate), if the local business or economic climate goes bad you can pick up and be towed to a different location, and you can always add more units if demand increases.
The one problem I see is pirates. No, seriously - you anchor one of these away from an area patrolled by a decent navy/coast guard, and I can see someone paying you a visit late one night to haul away equipment...
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:)
Ocean-water-cooling would just move the heat pollution [wikipedia.org] of data centers from an urban area to the ocean. I am not sure that is an improvement. Substantial temperature changes have major effects on ocean microecosystems.
Having served on a Navy ship I can point out a few problems:
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!
Also, powering the data center using tidal power would be taking energy out of the ocean. While the water cooling would be dumping energy back into the ocean, it will be dumping in less energy than was taken out, so there should actually be a net cooling of the ocean.
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?
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.
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.
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
Yes, but if these boats are movable Google can easily say: Let us do *insert thing here* or we will move to *insert country here* that will let us do that and you lose our tax dollars.
But Google won't have to pay patent fees in international jurisdiction and Google wants to fight censorship as much as the average/.er, it makes ads better.
Google envisions a world where 'computing centers are located on a ship or ships
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.
Computers can go in a matter of months in a location really close to the sea.
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.
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.
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
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cooling (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
GoogleWay (Score:5, Funny)
No.
GoogleBoat will GoogleFloat to a (Google)Safe (Google)Location.
Parent
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
Parent
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
Ahem...that would be Google Grasshoppers(TM).
Parent
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 :)
Parent
Re:Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Funny)
That's unpossible. More pirates would cause a corresponding drop in global climate temperature.
Ramen.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, talk about a new generation of water cooling!
Heat pollution (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Parent
Re:Cooling (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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?
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I think he means to defend the ship vs actual ocean pirates, not sovereign powers.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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
More reason? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:More reason? (Score:5, Funny)
I think they can manage 12 nano meters
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
SS Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Sea-Code? (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me a lot of Sea Code [sea-code.com].
Basically, a boat a few miles of the coast in international waters with cheap labour from other countries living on the boat.
For real Google?
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)
Parent
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)
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...
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)
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.
Ripe for *real* piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like easy pickings for a band of real pirates.
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
... 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!
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)