[AusNOG] Data Centre Design was Internode goes Carbon Neutral

Mark Smith mark.smith at team.adam.com.au
Thu Nov 19 14:59:15 EST 2009


McDonald Richards wrote:
>
> I’m guilty of skimming the message below which did say (forgetting 
> about current carrier & power infrastructure)  – but sure.  If you are 
> serving content globally, it’s cheaper to do from a communications 
> perspective the closer you move to  main global Internet corridor. 
> From SA you’re paying for the extra transmission hop over to Sydney 
> (via Melbourne?) and if your target truly is global, hosting in the 
> USA is obviously the best option where you can cut transmission costs 
> significantly.
>

Bandwidth costs aren't your only cost though. In SA you'll get cheaper 
floorspace or land for the DC, cheaper salaries due to cheaper cost of 
living, potentially cheaper power in the future because of geothermal, 
less risk of terrorist attack as its less of a target, not prone to 
earth quake, cheaper whole of content Internet redundant transit by also 
using the west cost submarine cable. Those benefits could outweigh and 
exceed the drawback of increased costs of the interstate transmission.

Admittedly it does get pretty hot here though - 43 today :-) OTOH, it 
gets fairly cold here in winter, so the idea of turning down your DC 
aircon during winter is a good one.

>  
>
> A major requirement I’d see for anybody looking to build a DC, green, 
> red or blue, is access to competitive communications infrastructure. I 
> don’t know of many IT or facilities managers who would put “green 
> power” high on their requirements list when seeking new sites.
>
Telstra isn't the only large capacity provider here in Adelaide .... we 
aren't that far behind the eastern states :-)

>  
>
> Macca
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* Mark Smith [mailto:mark.smith at team.adam.com.au]
> *Sent:* Thursday, 19 November 2009 2:31 PM
> *To:* McDonald Richards
> *Cc:* ausnog at ausnog.net
> *Subject:* Re: [AusNOG] Data Centre Design was Internode goes Carbon 
> Neutral
>
>  
>
> McDonald Richards wrote:
>
> Green DC is one thing but you have to consider access to infrastructure. SA
> and Tasmania are not exactly the most ideal places to be distributing your
> content from if you are trying to reach a global or even national
> audience...
>  
>   
>
> Can you be more specific about infrastructure SA is apparently missing?
>
> Macca
>  
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net <mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net>
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Hooper
> Sent: Thursday, 19 November 2009 1:21 PM
> To: ausnog at ausnog.net <mailto:ausnog at ausnog.net>
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Data Centre Design was Internode goes Carbon Neutral
>  
> I'd like to see idea's on the most ideal place in .AU to build a green DC.
>  
> I'm still pondering if the location would be based on cheap cooling or cheap
> power (forgetting about current carrier & power infrastructure)
>  
> Ie, you could build somewhere in SA and take advantage of geothermal power,
> or you could build in Tasmania where (correct me if I'm wrong) the average
> summer temp is 22 degrees.
>  
> -Dan
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net <mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net>
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of lists
> Sent: Thursday, 19 November 2009 10:38 AM
> To: Matt Carter; 'Curtis Bayne'; Mark Prior
> Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net <mailto:ausnog at ausnog.net>
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Data Centre Design was Internode goes Carbon Neutral
>  
> Thanks for everyones input.  There has been some good points raised in this 
> discussion
>  
> I am like some others, and am one of those that is investing in technolgies 
> that reduce the amount of power I use.  For those in that camp there seems 
> to be a lot of focus on designing data centres to suit the existing building
>  
> designs.  Correct me if I am wrong, but many data centres are located in 
> existing buildings in capital cities.  These are generally the larger of the
>  
> data centres, and as such these are where the major data centre vendors are 
> focusing thier attention and solutions.
>  
> Some have mentioned good data centre design, which raises the question, what
>  
> is good data centre design?
>  
> If we were to build a new data centre from scratch and we wanted to build it
>  
> to be enviromentally friendly and power efficient then how would we do it?
>  
> Leaving aside having the data centre located as near as possible to 2 power 
> grids and good access to carrier fibre and those issues and looking at it 
> from a purely efficient power and cooling design point
>  
> Do data centres need to be located in capital cities?
> Do we need physicall access to the data centres or do we need some capable 
> hands and legs.?
> When it comes to building design which material is best for maintaining low 
> ingress or egress of heat and cold?
> Is 240 volts the most efficient voltage to power such data centre equipment?
>  
> perhaps 48volts DC may address some heat issues
> Do we need raised floors?
> etc etc
>  
> Personally I think there may be a case to do away with raised floors, there 
> may also be a case for extracting heat from the racks and reusing it for 
> alternative uses.  It may be possible to locate a data centre outside of a 
> metro area and provide redundant paths back to metro areas.  There are many 
> possibilities, and most of them in one way or another relate to the 4 or 5 
> questions above.
>  
> While I commend Internode for taking the carbon neutral approach, I would 
> like to see some discussion regarding what is "needed" to enable a data 
> center to maintain uptime and avoid equipment failure.   Many of the vendors
>  
> are now saying their equipments working temperature range is 18 to 28 
> degrees C or even higher.  Perhaps 22 degrees is not longer what needs to be
>  
> achieved.
>  
> My analysis shows that equipment will survive at higher temps, and I am 
> always puzzled why we are using 240 volts instead of 48 Vdc.  The excess 
> heat generated is substantial.   I did an install of some equipment in 2004,
>  
> which had a 240 volt power supply that did POE at 48 volts to the equipment.
>  
> Due to the location we wanted to solar power it.  We installed it on solar 
> power and it worked fine using the manufactures power supply and an 
> inverter.  The issue was that we needed to but 16 solar panels and the 
> associated battery capacity to make it reliable.  We then decided to ask 
> "why", we found the equipment itself used 0.133 amps at 48 volts,  yet it 
> used 2.2 amps at 48v when using the manufactures power supply, most of which
>  
> was disapated as heat.   We built a new power supply did away with the 
> inverter and manufactures power supply, used 4 solar panels and a much 
> smaller battery bank and 5 years later it is still working like it was in 
> 2004 ( with higher uptime than mains power), which is why I raised the 
> questions above.  Each of us on our own are not big enough purchases of 
> equipment to influence vendors, however collectively over time we may be 
> able to drag the vendors along.  We just need to work out what in fact is 
> actually needed as opposed to the status quo.
>  
> Regards
>  
> Tim McCullagh
>  
> HaleNET
>  
>  
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>
>  
>
> -- 
> Regards,
>
> *Mark Smith*
> Technology Group
>
> Adam Internet
>
> *Office* Level 2 / 117 King William Street, Adelaide, SA, 5000
> *Postal* GPO Box 121, Adelaide, SA, 5001
> *Phone* +61 (0)8 8423 4017 | *Mobile* +61 (0)41 22 44 871 | *Fax* +61 
> (0)8 8231 0223
>


-- 
Regards,

*Mark Smith*
Technology Group

Adam Internet

*Office* Level 2 / 117 King William Street, Adelaide, SA, 5000
*Postal* GPO Box 121, Adelaide, SA, 5001
*Phone* +61 (0)8 8423 4017 | *Mobile* +61 (0)41 22 44 871 | *Fax* +61 
(0)8 8231 0223

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