Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#31

Post by nostromo » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:37 PM UTC

tlarkworthy wrote: post #24

nostromo wrote: post #9

I was Googling to find what a boat-based wave-powered generator would look like, and I found this interesting diagram: http://www.greenpatentblog.com/2011/12/08/fraunhofers-mobile...

I don't think wave power is deployed successfully yet[1]. The cooling would not be a leap of technology though. [1] Its under development http://www.pelamiswave.com/ but I don't think its finished yet.

Yeah, that's why I was trying to figure out how they would power it.

Diesel generators seem... unGoogley.

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#32

Post by justanother » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:39 PM UTC

My first thought: "Finally I'm interested in applying at Google, if it involves using my captain's license!"

My second thought: "Meh, the job interview probably involves writing a breadth-first search algorithm to search for known pirates in the graph of nearby ports."

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#33

Post by caycep » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:39 PM UTC

I can just see google hq now.

"Boy that was quite a storm last night...oh wait...gmail just floated away and is halfway to hawai'i"

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#34

Post by tlarkworthy » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:39 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #31

tlarkworthy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think wave power is deployed successfully yet[1]. The cooling would not be a leap of technology though. [1] Its under development http://www.pelamiswave.com/ but I don't think its finished yet.

Yeah, that's why I was trying to figure out how they would power it. Diesel generators seem... unGoogley.

Plug it in to the mains? I don't think you want tons of servers in the middle of the ocean. How would you get the data out without fibres anyway?

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#35

Post by musashibaka » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:40 PM UTC

So it appears as though Google is looking towards a future where they are an independent country, or at the very least free from regulation, visa-a-vis Seasteading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#36

Post by VikingCoder » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:40 PM UTC

seanv wrote: post #16

another cool thing about floating data centers in california is they're pretty much earthquake proof... built in shock absorbers (aka water). You can probably charge a premium for easily accessible highly secure data I would imagine. ... assuming megalodon isn't still around

An earthquake can cause a tsunami. Depending on conditions, the tsunami wave could be hundreds of feet high. So, not earthquake "proof."

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#37

Post by DanBC » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

I hope they fit it with sub-surface portholes and webcams.

The article keeps saying "huge", but really that's tiny for a ship. Google could buy an old cruise liner and fit several of those inside. Or maybe Google is going to buy more little ships and plonk one of these in each?

I hope that they have adequate security, because all that gold and copper is worth stealing for some people.

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#38

Post by Johnie » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

justanother wrote: post #32

My first thought: "Finally I'm interested in applying at Google, if it involves using my captain's license!" My second thought: "Meh, the job interview probably involves writing a breadth-first search algorithm to search for known pirates in the graph of nearby ports."

No, you mapreduce the Pirate search. Send out 100 workers to check on the nearby ports and see which ones come back.

You need to think at Google scale.

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#39

Post by DanBC » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

tlarkworthy wrote: post #34

nostromo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's why I was trying to figure out how they would power it. Diesel generators seem... unGoogley.

Plug it in to the mains? I don't think you want tons of servers in the middle of the ocean. How would you get the data out without fibres anyway?

With your Google Blimps?

Re: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

#40

Post by mrb » Fri, Oct 25, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

With movable data centers, Google can easily move them across oceans, as popularity and usage of different Google services inevitably shifts across countries over time, in order to be closer to wherever their users are to reduce network latency.

For example an "Orkut data center" would have been very useful to Google in 2008, when they announced they were moving its operations to Brazil because somewhat unpredictably this is where their core user base developed the most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut