However, when the two founders of Google looked at the mountain view from the office of Google headquarters, they did not feel the sadness of Alexander the Great. On the contrary, Google has also shown an ambition, and its goal is to achieve more transcendence in the Internet field.
Perhaps transcending tradition is Google's innate character. Recently, we were surprised to find that Google has started its own? Sea base? . A few days ago, Google submitted a document to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to create? Maritime data center? (Water-based data center), which fully shows that Google is seriously considering building a large computer data center at sea as the hub of its search engine.
? Maritime data center? It sounds like a joke, but Google is serious and serious.
Offshore floating data center
According to the documents recently published on USPTO website, Google proposed in the application that government agencies or large enterprises can set up data centers on board. Accordingly, the data centers will rely on seawater and tides to generate electricity, and at the same time use the flow of seawater to cool the machines in the data centers.
? The data center is located on one or more ships docked on the water, and collects energy through natural water movement, and converts it into electric energy for the data center, or provides it to a cooling water pump for cooling the data center. ? Google wrote in the application that the advantages of this data center are that it is easy to install, can be transferred at any time, and uses clean energy without causing any pollution to the environment.
In the application, Google also expounded the principle of seawater power generation and the establishment of machine water cooling system. According to Google's plan, Google will dock a ship 7 miles from the coast (about 1 1.2 km) and deploy a supercomputer enough to support its Internet search engine. In addition, Google also proposed? Seaside data center? Another option, that is, building a data center on the coast, still depends on hydropower and water cooling. In addition, Google has an alternative power generation scheme, which uses wind power instead of hydropower.
Some analysts said that if Google's patent application is successfully approved, Google will gain huge benefits.
On the one hand, this is another attempt by Google to find an alternative energy plan. If successful, its alternative energy plan will take a big step forward, while the offshore data center relies on tidal power generation and seawater refrigeration. Once completed, it will also save Google millions of dollars in energy consumption every year. On the other hand, if Google uses seawater to build an energy-saving data center, it will bring a lot of tax benefits to Google, and the company's current high intellectual property licensing fees are expected to be reduced.
? How much tax benefit Google will get is uncertain, which depends on where Google finally chooses the address of the data center and how many such data centers Google will build. ? The analyst said that the only certainty is that Google will definitely save a lot of money, reaching millions of dollars every year.
In fact, Google is not the only company looking for ways to save energy and protect the environment. Due to the rapid growth of Internet, especially in developing countries such as China and India, the energy demand of data centers has also increased rapidly. McKinsey even predicted in the report that in 2020, the energy consumption of data centers will exceed that of the aviation industry.
To this end, Microsoft signed a memorandum with the Siberian government of Russia in June last year165438+1October, and planned to build a data center to use cold air there to cool servers; Sun also announced that he would use abandoned coal mines to build a data center in Japan and consider using a spring water cooling system. It is estimated that the water cooling system will save Sun $9 million annually. In addition, it has been reported recently that IBM, Dell and Hewlett-Packard are also considering ships as space carriers for data centers.
Technical experts praised this innovative plan of IT enterprises to find alternative energy sources. Rich Miller, a columnist who has in-depth research and understanding of data centers, said in his blog:? This is the real innovation, complete open thinking! ?
Arabian adventure?
Indeed, Google has always been a creative company, just like every innovation will encounter resistance. This time, Google's? Going to sea? The plan has also been questioned by many parties.
The security problem of ocean data center is the most noticeable.
? This plan sounds interesting, but it is disturbed by many factors unrelated to technology, which are unpredictable and uncontrollable. For example, how to complete the security work of the data center? In particular, these data centers are 7 miles away from the coastline, and in some areas, they are already on the high seas. In addition, what if * * * takes these floating data centers as the target, or encounters other unexpected problems? It seems that Google has not fully considered these issues. ? An industry insider questioned.
Some commentators also said:? Now those lifebuoys used to collect weather data are often damaged or stolen. It seems that this ship carrying expensive equipment and a lot of data needs 24-hour protection. ?
A naval IT director told reporters that building a data center at sea is not an easy task, and one of the key issues is how to ensure the safety and stability of data center equipment.
? In marine environment, humidity and salinity are high, which will cause continuous corrosion to data center equipment; Irregular waves will also bring losses to equipment and cables; Besides, it is very dangerous to catch fire on a ship. ? The naval IT director said.
Although these problems are not completely insurmountable, these complex high-tech systems can be deployed on today's modern naval vessels, but they still need huge investment, and the daily operation and maintenance costs are higher than ordinary data centers. He suggested that Google must think carefully before implementing the offshore data center project.
Google has a plan.
Although there are still many engineering and technical problems to be solved, Google has a well-thought-out plan, and many analysts also believe that the US government is likely to actively support Google's idea.
First of all, as far as the energy in the data center is concerned, the power supply must be continuous and stable, and because of the huge energy consumption, the cheaper the energy in the data center, the better. Although temporary generator sets can be seen everywhere, they are still far from the free sustainable hydropower provided by water data centers.
Secondly, building a modern data center itself is a very complicated problem. For example, the location of a data center is related to the local land resource cost, laws and local bandwidth resources, which will directly affect the cost and data processing capacity of a data center. These problems will become more complicated if the data center is to be expanded.
These problems do not exist in offshore data centers. ? If it is necessary to expand the data center, only one more boat is needed to solve the problem of insufficient space; If the bandwidth capacity of data centers is insufficient, then you can also move them to places with sufficient bandwidth resources; In case of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, these ships can also be driven away, which can effectively reduce the data risk and prevent the hardware from being damaged. ? Google related personnel said.
In addition, some analysts praised Google's idea. If Google's offshore data center can be realized, it will make great progress in power generation technology, make hydropower and tidal power generation mature, and may solve a considerable part of the power shortage problem, so the US government may also support Google. ?
Even Google envisioned other functions of the offshore data center in its blog. Data centers floating on the sea can also help rescuers and troops to carry out rescue in disasters and emergencies. ?