Cheap Data Center Space, Shuttered Retailers

July 6, 2009 Dave Ohara

MSNBC.com/AP has an article about empty big retail space. The interesting thing about these big retail spaces, is they are built like warehouses. Seems like a good space to put in containerized data centers as long as you can get the power and network infrastructure in place.

‘Ghostboxes’ haunt communities across U.S.

As big retailers go under, consolidate, blight is monument to lost jobs

With the recent spate of bankruptcies and store closures, including Circuit City and Linens ’N Things, more abandoned buildings like this Sportsman's Warehouse in Allen Park, Mich., will be added to a struggling commercial real estate market.

View related photos

Carlos Osorio / AP

updated 2:48 p.m. PT, Mon., July 6, 2009

BISMARCK, N.D. - Hundreds of anxious shoppers watched as city officials used power saws to cut 2-by-4s during Home Depot Inc.’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for its 102,700-square-foot building center in Bismarck. Less than three years later, the home improvement retailer shuttered the underperforming store, leaving a big orange empty eyesore on the outskirts of town.

The building, sitting derelict and silent on acres of asphalt, is now listed for sale at $10.5 million. But there’s been little interest in the near windowless warehouse-like building that occupies a lot the size of a dozen football fields.

Or maybe you could even use the space for a content delivery network in strategy locations.

Modular Containerized Data Center Construction, learning from Pharmaceutical

April 24, 2009 Dave Ohara

I was talking to an experienced precon engineer (Dave Irvin, Skanska Preconstruction Director) about modular data center construction, and he pointed out Pharmaceuticals have been doing this for a while.

I found this pdf on “why, when, how to benefit from modular projects.”

There an challenges for modular construction.

And some good pictures to give you an idea of scale.

There are 25 slides in the presentation that gives you some good things to think about.

April Fool’s Joke, Google’s Oil Tanker Data Center

April 1, 2009 Dave Ohara

In keeping with the spirit of Google presented the idea for an Oil Tanker as the data center building with an oil based cooling system.

Urs Hoelzle had fun with the topic and gave Google’s logic for an oil tanker.

Microsoft Mike Manos – Challenging the Status Quo

October 27, 2008 Dave Ohara

Here is a video of Mike Manos where sharing some of his ideas.

A core issue Mike discusses is challenging the status quo for data center construction and operation.

ARCast.TV - Michael Manos on Datacenter Leadership

Microsoft Blog Post – Thinking Out of the Box – Chicago Container Data Center

October 20, 2008 Dave Ohara

DataCenterKnowldge has a post about Microsoft’s Chicago Data Center.

Microsoft: PUE of 1.22 for Data Center Containers
October 20th, 2008 : Rich Miller

Microsoft says its testing shows that the data center containers it is installing in its new Chicago data center are extraordinarily energy efficient. The 40-foot shipping containers packed with servers can deliver a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) energy efficiency rating of 1.22, which rivals recent PUEs reported by Google. Microsoft’s Mike Manos revealed the PUE numbers in a blog post about the Chicago data center, which has just completed its first phase of construction.

Mike Manos’ original post is here.

The specifics about the Green and PUE is below.

The other thing which is important is the energy efficiency of the containers. Now I want to be careful here as the reporting of efficiency numbers can be a dangerous exercise in the blogo-sphere. But our testing shows that our containers in Chicago can deliver an average PUE of 1.22 with an AVERAGE ANNUAL PEAK PUE of 1.36. I break these two numbers out separately because there is still some debate (at least in the circles I travel in) on which of these metrics is more meaningful. Regardless of your position on which is more meaningful, you have to admit those numbers are pretty darn compelling.

For the purists and math-heads out there, Microsoft includes house lighting and office loads in our PUE calculation. They are required to run the facility so we count them as overhead.

On the “Sustainability” side of containers it’s also interesting to note that shipping 2500 servers in one big container has a positive reduction on the CO2 related to transportation, let alone the amount of packaging material eliminated.

So in my mind, containers are driving huge cost and efficiency (read also as cost benefits in addition to “green” benefits) gains for the business. This is an extremely important point, as Microsoft expands its data center infrastructure, it is supremely important that we follow an established smart growth methodology for our facilities that is designed to prevent overbuilding—and thus avoid associated costs to the environment and to our shareholders. We are a business after all. We must do all of this while also meeting the rapidly growing demand for Microsoft’s Online and Live services.