Most recently, a list of applicants for the title of "the most beautiful data center" of the world was published. It was the turn to combine beauty with extreme. This is how ComTec has a list of the 7 most extreme server farms. Whether it’s a deep cave at the South Pole or the deep waters off the Pacific coast of the United States, data is safely stored in extreme places around the world.
1. On Z00 meters under the ground in the kingdom of polar bears
Svalbard archipelago is located between Norway and the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean. Among the wild untouched nature and the cosmic Arctic silence of Spitsbergen, information is safely stored under the permafrost at a depth of 300 meters ... This unique data center Arctic World Archive began its work a little over a year ago, here are the most important copies of data from around the world. Providing ultra-safe and long-term storage of information that is especially important for humanity, even in case of the Apocalypse, is the main mission of the World Archives.
The Norwegian provider Piql and Store Norske have chosen such a place for a reason; the Noah's Ark is already located nearby for the vegetation - the world-wide family storehouse, it holds the seeds of crops. The permafrost of the Arctic island, the low probability of earthquakes - all this allows you to significantly reduce costs, save on energy to maintain a low temperature. The unique data center was officially opened on February 26, 2017, it was nicknamed "Judgment Day", it sounds already extreme.
He is able to survive global catastrophes, including nuclear wars, direct rocket attacks and extreme climate change. The data center is located at a 300-meter depth, equipped with explosion-proof doors, airlock chambers, motion sensors and reinforced concrete walls. The data, on special films - the long-lasting photosensitive film piqlFilm - can last for more than 1000 years, in the former coal mine a constant temperature from -5 to -10 degrees Celsius will be maintained.
Norway, Brazil, and Mexico are the first countries to express a desire to use a highly reliable data center and archive important data.
2. Extreme Spanish: Barcelona Supercomputing Center
A couple of centuries ago it was a holy place to worship, the temple of Torre Girona, now this work of art has become home to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the main hall is filled with glass server rooms. Here the past and the future are intertwined, creating a magical atmosphere of the digital present.
3. Yahoo data center and chicken coop. What is the connection?
Back in 2010, the company Yahoo announced the launch of a green server farm in Lockport area of 47 thousand square meters. meters This data center is powered by energy from a fully renewable source - Niagara Falls. The cool climate of upstate New York, seasonal winds allow the data center to use external air for cooling.
What you should pay attention to is the very structure of the buildings. And it is made according to the principle of ... a traditional chicken coop. Due to the domed roof structure, natural ventilation of the computing equipment is ensured. Each of the 4 modular buildings of the server farm - 36 by 18 meters, this ratio of length and width facilitates the penetration of outdoor air (by increasing the ratio of floor space and volume of the room). Along the walls of buildings there are horizontal ventilation louvers, cold air is supplied to the equipment, after which the heated (used) is returned to the isolated hot corridor, rises up. Engineers designed a vent hole system on the roof of each such module.
In the summer, ventilating modules are used, their power is five horsepower, there are filters, evaporative interculating modules for removing excess moisture and heat.
In addition to being one of the world's most extreme data centers, in 2010, the Ministry of Energy assigned the YCC cooling system (Yahoo Chicken Coop) the title of best-in-class energy efficiency — 40% less energy and 95% less water compared to traditional server farms.
4. Immersing information on the ocean floor: Microsoft and its project of an underwater data center
In search of new efficient cooling methods for their server equipment, the world giant Microsoft has plunged the data center under water, and also earned it to be called one of the most extreme data centers in the world.
At the end of the summer of 2015, the company loaded an experimental prototype of a new underwater data center Leona Philpot under water a kilometer from the US Pacific coast.
Such an underwater data center, a sealed metal container 3 x 2 meters weighing more than 17 tons was supplied with a large number of heat exchangers, they gave away excessive heat from the equipment “directly” to cold water.
Such a concept of “immersion” was proposed by Shaun James in 2013, a team of like-minded innovators was formed, in 2014 work began on translating the idea into reality. So there was a project codenamed Natick.
5. In the center of the desert: NSA and its date center.
On the territory of a deserted desert in the state of Utah there is another information processing center, which has deserved the bold title of extreme. The data center is known as the Data Processing Initiative of the Intelligence Community for Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.
In 2011, the NSA issued the first press release on the construction of large data centers in Utah, the building was named the largest data center of the Pentagon, the construction was carried out by US troops. The house of such a serious construction was chosen deserted desert in Utah. The data center area of the NSA is 92.9 thousand square meters.
6. The coldest southern data center: Ice Cube or Ice Cube
At the polar station Amundsen-Scott, a server station was built to support the neutrino observatory, called the Ice Cube. Unlike conventional astronomical observatories, neutrino sites are placed as deep as possible under the earth, under water, or under ice. And having “sunk” the Ice Cube observatory for more than 2500 meters under the Antarctic ice, the researchers are looking for something that hardly interacts with the substance - a mysterious neutrino, often called a phantom particle. They interact so weakly with matter that it is simply impossible to detect them without a huge “detector”.
At the Ice Cube server station, the usual temperature is from -40, the place is so cold that instead of cooling the air (as in traditional data centers), it is heated. In the
Ice Cube Lab data center, there are more than 1200 cores and three petabytes of memory; cooling server capacity at an outdoor temperature of less than -40 is at least extreme. You can not just take and run such a chilling air stream, there will be a huge temperature drop and the equipment will fail. The data center is powered by energy from two generators.
The climatic conditions, operation, maintenance of the viability and operation of the Ice Cube Lab server farm deserve the highest level of extremes.
7. The Phantom of the Mountains: Green Mountain Data Center
The most environmentally friendly data center is located near the town of Stavanger, on the rocky shore of the sea bay of the western coast of Norway - the fjord - inside the mountain. Security Green Mountain rolls over, previously there were premises of the NATO Cold War ammunition depot. Access to the repository is via tunnels deep underground.
The date of the center is not afraid of either electromagnetic or radioactive radiation. The total area of the data center is 13,600 square meters. The power source is three independent environmentally friendly hydroelectric power plants. Water from a nearby deep-water fjord with a constant temperature of 8 degrees Celsius (from a depth of 100 meters) is a natural source of cooling for server hardware.
The data center meets the requirements of the Uptime Institute Tier III standard, plus it fulfills most of the Tier IV compliance criteria.
Here is a list of unique data centers that are recognized as the most extreme in the world.
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