Photo Tour of Facebook's Open Source Datacenter 70
An anonymous reader writes "Robert Scoble has published fantastic photo tour of Facebook's new open source data center. This datacenter is the most energy efficient in the world. The Google and other datacenters are pushing back against new efficiency requirements for a while, and an open source competitor will only make things better for the rest of us."
Not quite. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it's not the most energy-efficient in the world. The numbers they published were only from a VERY limited timespan during the coldest part of the year when energy needed for cooling would be drastically lowered.
If they published a full-year figure, I can guarantee you it wouldn't be nearly as good as the published one.
PUE tricks (Score:4, Interesting)
Several large data center operators are trying to win this "most efficient" title and putting lots of innovation and resources into them. However, you need to be very careful at comparing the outcome. First notice the actual claim, "most efficient". The Facebook data center consumes water to reduce energy needs. This can be a very dangerous practice if followed on a large scale. Consider the recent annex of a US government site in Utah in order to get priority water service. http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/03/09/annexation-boosts-cooling-for-nsa-data-center/
So far, anyone attempting to lay claim on the "most efficient" title has moved things from the cooling column, sometimes into the computer load column (most notably fans), sometimes over to water consumption. Yes, you get a better efficiency awarded if you consume more power in non cooling areas.
The quote showing when this came up is so true;
The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. -- Lily Tomlin