rare glimpse into Google's data centers

[GTaudiophile]

Saw these yesterday. Came away impressed at the attention to detail.

 

[SandEagle]

I read that, but it isn't clear to me what they mean. Does the air get cooled, and returned, or do they use it for heating something useful?

dude, what part of "....into a cooling unit to be recirculated..". do you not understand?

 

[lxskllr]

dude, what part of "....into a cooling unit to be recirculated..". do you not understand?

I'm actually pretty good at English. I think you should parse the words without including your preconceptions, and tell me what they mean.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

"Here hundreds of fans funnel hot air from the server racks into a cooling unit to be recirculated in Oklahoma. The green lights are the server status LEDs reflecting from the front of the servers"

All those 80mm fans

 

[IronWing]

I'm actually pretty good at English. I think you should parse the words without including your preconceptions, and tell me what they mean.

I think he's following the air flow, not the heat flow.

SandEagle, what does Google do with the waste heat extracted by the cooling unit?

 

[IronWing]

All those 80mm fans

That's kind of weird. Do they really use onboard fans? For a setup of this scale I'd think they'd use negative pressure from a central fan unit to pull air across the server racks.

 

[SandEagle]

I'm actually pretty good at English. I think you should parse the words without including your preconceptions, and tell me what they mean.

you said "does the air get cooled..."
cooling unit, hello?

then you said "and returned"
recirculated, hello?

goodbye

 

[SandEagle]

I think he's following the air flow, not the heat flow.

SandEagle, what does Google do with the waste heat extracted by the cooling unit?

that's sensitive information. you'll have to contact Google about it

 

[lxskllr]

I wonder if data centers reclaim the heat they produce. It seems kind of dumb to just release it to the environment.

you said "does the air get cooled..."
cooling unit, hello?

then you said "and returned"
recirculated, hello?

goodbye

Try again. You said you were brown, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you aren't a native English speaker.

 

[Spungo]

That's kind of weird. Do they really use onboard fans? For a setup of this scale I'd think they'd use negative pressure from a central fan unit to pull air across the server racks.

Maybe they have multiple things going on so all bases are covered. Fans, negative pressure, other. One can be taken down for maintenance while the others are still running.

 

[pelov]

It looks like one of those old timey mail delivery systems in buildings.

 

[BUTCH1]

I wonder if data centers reclaim the heat they produce. It seems kind of dumb to just release it to the environment.

No, we have a cooling tower at work, warm water enters it, gets chilled by 16 double banks of compressors (32KBTU each) and goes back inside the building..

 

[lxskllr]

No, we have a cooling tower at work, warm water enters it, gets chilled by 16 double banks of compressors (32KBTU each) and goes back inside the building..

That's too bad. It seems like someone clever could use the heated water for something directly, or extract the energy indirectly so it doesn't get wasted.

 

[KK]

I've been across the road from the douglas county ga google IDC at the AT&T IDC, it's not quite as colorful as the google one.

 

[Red Squirrel]

"Here hundreds of fans funnel hot air from the server racks into a cooling unit to be recirculated in Oklahoma. The green lights are the server status LEDs reflecting from the front of the servers"

I was reading somewhere that the air in there is around 50C! They actually have to shut down all the servers if someone has to go behind there. To give an idea how hot that is, my furnace main plenum gets to around 55C when it's been running for a while. It might get to 60C depending on the intake temp.


As for recirculating the heat I'd be curious too but my guess is it gets recirculated outside to be cooled as there is more heat produced than what they actually need to heat the building. I work in a telco central office and with all the equipment we actually run AC in the office area all year round, even when it's 30 below outside. The building itself just generates so much heat you don't need all of it. Probably same idea here.

 

[spidey07]

Pretty obvious they're doing a top of rack design, you would have to.

 

[Tommy2000GT]

the google website has better pictures and descriptions

 

[IronWing]

the google website has better pictures and descriptions

What would they know about it?

 

[jagec]

That's too bad. It seems like someone clever could use the heated water for something directly, or extract the energy indirectly so it doesn't get wasted.

Low-temperature waste heat is essentially useless for everything except, well, heating things. And I doubt that any of those centers have much of a heating bill in the winter.

 

[Ben90]

I was reading somewhere that the air in there is around 50C! They actually have to shut down all the servers if someone has to go behind there. To give an idea how hot that is, my furnace main plenum gets to around 55C when it's been running for a while. It might get to 60C depending on the intake temp.

You realize it reaches 50*C in many parts of the world naturally right? The dash of a car in summer will break 70*C within minutes where I live.

 

[Red Squirrel]

You realize it reaches 50*C in many parts of the world naturally right? The dash of a car in summer will break 70*C within minutes where I live.

That is still insane hot, not something I'd want to be subjected to for more than a few minutes.

 

[Broheim]

That is still insane hot, not something I'd want to be subjected to for more than a few minutes.

the hot aisle is a sweatbox, the cold aisle is freezing and both places the noise will drive you nuts, such is life in a datacenter.

 

[trmiv]

The hot aisle can be your friend though. Whenever I'm working in the datacenter for a long time and my hands, and ears are fucking numb, I just go hang out in the hot aisle for awhile and get nice and toasty! Back and forth, back and forth regulating my temp like a reptile.

 

[Broheim]

The hot aisle can be your friend though. Whenever I'm working in the datacenter for a long time and my hands, and ears are fucking numb, I just go hang out in the hot aisle for awhile and get nice and toasty! Back and forth, back and forth regulating my temp like a reptile.

if I don't feel like working I'll strip down to a tshirt and go hide in the hot aisle :ninja:

but yeah, I do the same thing when I start to freeze in the unrelenting arctic wind of the cold aisle.

 

[ViviTheMage]

purrty