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Aerial Video of Apple's Finished NC Data Center, Already Plans for Expansion?
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Apple Inc. run their whole iTunes capability out of India. They are recognised as the largest SAP micro payment installation in the world. Whatever they are doing with this data centre in the USA is in addition to vast resources that they already consume at outsourced vendors for hosting.
Apple Inc. run their whole iTunes capability out of India. They are recognised as the largest SAP micro payment installation in the world. Whatever they are doing with this data centre in the USA is in addition to vast resources that they already consume at outsourced vendors for hosting.
consuming less energy would have an effect on temperature. Better insulated buildings means you don't have to run the heater (or AC if trying to cool it ) as long. You run them till get warm/cool enough and then turn them off. While off you are not making contributions to increased CO2 *** , etc. etc. With better insulation you extend the time between when need to turn heater/AC back on again have partially created an isolated system.
The more salient factor here is that you can't turn the heaters off. Requests come in through the internet and that is what drives your heaters on/off swtich. Since the internet runs 24/7/365, the heaters run 24/7/365. that also means you have to run AC also since you will be running the heaters far after you have reached a comfortable to live in temperature. Theromdynamics comes into play because moving that heat around costs even more energy/heat trying to get rid of this excess.
There is some insignificant marginal extra work may have to do in getting rid of heat absorbed on the roof externally on a hot day that leaks through to the inside. If simply use a white/light color roofing material can reflect most of that passively. However, the vast majority of the time there is more heat under the roof than on top. Additionally, if it is hot outside your HVAC system is going to have bigger difficulty trying to get rid of the excess heat. That's a bigger issue than the roof.
Putting a green roof on a data center is like putting a green roof on top of a power plant (coal , nat gas, nuke/atomic/chemical ) , chemical refinery, or hood of a gas powered car. It has exceedingly small relative impact on the flow of heat in the local system.
*** Increasing CO2 does raise tempature because the Earth is not a independent closed thermodynamic system. There is a major local part of the local (relative to the galaxy) thermodyanmic system called the Sun. The 2nd law is entirely applicable if going to capture more energy from it.
This data center can't be anything "awesome" or "magical". The simple fact is that you can't build a cloud service in the single location if you intend to serve wide user base. What you need is a network of data centers all over the world. I honestly don't think Apple would build a cloud based services that would suck even more then MobileMe iDisk does. Compare this to a network of Google data centers to get some perspective. The fact remains, cloud computing data centers need to be relatively local. Single data center = 
or more like customers.
EDIT: The number of Google data centers is now much higher then it was in 2008 (which is shown in the link).
or more like customers.EDIT: The number of Google data centers is now much higher then it was in 2008 (which is shown in the link).
It's all cool n' the gang until the damn thing becomes sentient! Then it's nuke time! At that point, it won't matter how high of a standard Apple built it- it will have been too high!
This data center can't be anything "awesome" or "magical". The simple fact is that you can't build a cloud service in the single location if you intend to serve wide user base. What you need is a network of data centers all over the world. I honestly don't think Apple would build a cloud based services that would suck even more then MobileMe iDisk does. Compare this to a network of Google data centers to get some perspective. The fact remains, cloud computing data centers need to be relatively local. Single data center =
EDIT: The number of Google data centers is now much higher then it was in 2008 (which is shown in the link).
Excellent point.
I think it would be funny if Jobs was questioned at the next apple event about what the datacenter is for, and replied, "I honestly have no idea. Haven't decided. I mean, we could do a bunch of stuff with it, but really, we just built the thing. We'll figure it out. Right now its a giant basketball court." And then went on to the next question.
Are they going to build up or outward?
First, I don't think its a good idea to be enlarging ONE data center in ONE location. Wouldn't it be wiser to have multiple ones just in case of a natural disaster?
Second, it seems like a waste of space if they were to build outward, though I don't think you can just add floors to a finished building either.
First, I don't think its a good idea to be enlarging ONE data center in ONE location. Wouldn't it be wiser to have multiple ones just in case of a natural disaster?
Second, it seems like a waste of space if they were to build outward, though I don't think you can just add floors to a finished building either.
What about alternative energy sources, like solar or wind? That sounds like the sort of esoteric thing Apple would do.
Solar and Wind suck as primary energy sources for a datacenter. Again this is primarily because of the 24/7/365 effect. There is no time when you turn it off when everyone goes home (or to sleep). If servicing world wide internet requests someone is always awake and doing something.
They could incrementally shrink the bill by partially supplementing with some wind and some solar. However, even at full power that will likely only be a subset of power required.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/16/solar-power-at-data-center-scale/
For the example there, at peak production the solar panels produce 4MW . The datacenter consumes 80MW. ( data center that large can get up into the 100MW range) Yeah it is a lower bill, but it is still a net importer of electricity from the grid. Note that this is in AZ too. Lots of cloudless, sunny days. Kind of whacked putting a data center in the desert.
A decent solar/wind system would keep the small set of offices cool, help run the security system, the lights , etc. That helps if can stay off peak power billing times of the day. But unless you make the solar/wind farm bigger than the datacenter... you are likely going to be behind the curve on covering total system power.
the other negating factor is that Apple/google/etc don't put these centers where the power is expensive ( so that solar/wind could pay back in reasonable time). They put these centers where power is cheap ( usually Nukes and/or hydro nearby ). If trying to lower the electricity bill moving to a different city can be about as effective as Wind/Solar option.
For backup generators folks typically have 10,000's of gallons of diesel on hand to run generators that can pump out 10's of megawatts. Some folks will have some flywheels that can help with the transition until the diesels fire up. Many folks cover that with batteries though. Wind/Solar won't help since can't cover full load.
A slightly greener backup fuel would be natural gas but that's usually harder to safely store and to get replacement deliveries.
Has anyone considered that they need somewhere to park, and drive their Segways at lunch?
Either that or Steve wants to spell "OS11" so it's visible from space.
Well, I *was* getting tired of "football fields".
B)
Either that or Steve wants to spell "OS11" so it's visible from space.
Using Walmart as a unit of measure. American has reached a new low...
Well, I *was* getting tired of "football fields".
B)
No joke, but they are trying to back up the entire internet, so that they could bring it back after 2012. Again, not a joke, Google is doing the same.
It's a double edged sword
I don't like the idea of knocking down all those tree, I find it slightly hypocritical of Apple when they've bragged about being oh so eco friendly for so long.
What I do like is the jobs that have been created by this.
I don't like the idea of knocking down all those tree, I find it slightly hypocritical of Apple when they've bragged about being oh so eco friendly for so long.
What I do like is the jobs that have been created by this.
I have never seen someone put a green roof on a data center. They are worried enough about water leaking through that they aren't going to practically store water on top of it. It's also comical that anyone thinks they would just add another floor. The building is barely complete, you think they are going to rip the roof off of it? The expansion will be a separate building, not attached at all, guaranteed.
+1
Also, iOS app store. They are building another 500,000 feet to time machine the first building. I wonder if they with use IBM servers to save money
How many people do you think they will have in there? I mean if it's the size of Super Walmart. I don't see that many jobs for inside the the building to need that much parking. Although I've only been to 2 apple stores and I am amazed at how many people work in there. I would say it going to be a park of some sort.
From a recent article link at the source link:
It appears IBM with their client-server model is at the heart of Apple's cloud.
I told you so.
Rocketman
article said:
It appears IBM with their client-server model is at the heart of Apple's cloud.
I told you so.
Rocketman
