Cambridge brain touts wind-n-server combo farms The head of Cambridge University's Computer Lab has advocated a restructuring of today's computer architecture, in which processing power would move away from desktop systems and scattered data centres and be centralised close to mighty wind farms. Professor Andy Hopper's green thin-client plans were reported in today's …
Why don't we put thin clients in giant dirigibles that float from wind farm to wind farm? That way, we could be reasonably sure they'd always be near a wind farm that's actually got some wind blowing to generate the power for the servers.
Connectivity? Oh that's not my problem mate. I'm a Guardian reader.
So what's new about putting huge data centres next to supplies of cheap energy (or other energy-intensive industries like aluminium smelting). Aren't Google, Microsoft and others placing data centres next to hydro systems? Aren't their companies looking at geo-thermal sites for large data centres? The problem with relying on wind power is it is so unreliable - any giant data centre is going to require its own giant generator for windless days; that's unless it relies on power over the grid and that means transmission losses to/from remote locations which I think is where we came in.
As for reduced processor requirements at the desktop, think again. Anybody using Flickr with a few thousand photos and a couple of hundred sets and collections will find their CPU flat-out at times when organising photos. Then there's all that high-resolution video stream processing.
That's without considering all activities, like gaming, video processing, image processing and other graphically intensive processes which benefit from lots of local processing, local media distribution. On top of that, all the increased network bandwidth comes at a cost with all that extra network kit required.
The answer to the local processing side is smart technology which adapts its power usage to the processing demand - there is already a lot of progress in this field.
So by all means put the server farms next to the generator capacity, but as a means of reducing local power requirements - I think not.
This person gets the monthly award for stating the bleeding obvious.
However, there are many reasons why people continue to build data centres in the most expensive real estate areas (central London, New York City). Sometimes the cost of power is immaterial to the other reasons why customers put gear in the middle of high utility cost areas.
...will be kept safely and securely !! However, considering this government's track-record, this assumption is, itself, not safe !!
I would much rather have my LAN disconnected from the outside world every night after work than to allow "free" access to my lovely data !!
Furthermore, most windfarms will be out at sea. The costs of setting up storm-proof data centres at sea will be definitely *NOT* green !! The alternative is periodic blackouts when the data centres are shorted out by the latest storm !! Also, the salt corrosion of the computing hardware will be far higher than normal !!
These professors should leave their ivory towers once in a while !!
So, whats the Carbon footprint of making the gigantic many day UPS that would be needed for calm days?
How well would this work for a game of TF2?
I agree a desktop with a quad core 3GHz is wasted on an office desktop, but surely to have remote processing you still need the desktop on?
How ironic that years after we threw it out we are once again looking at going back to the model of completely dumb terminals with a central mainframe. Seems to me this is just a way to sell 10Gbit switches and cable jobs to handle streaming screens real-time.
Paris cos I'm guessing she chaired the committee that came up with this.
The mans a plank and obviousely has no real world experience.
Those that can,do;, those that can't,teach
.
It's as stupid as saying well it'd be best to fill up your cars fuel at the refinarey because tankering it around the country just dosn't make environmental sense!
Still, lots of big mirrors in various deserts please....
ps the sun can shine at night - assuming that you've superheated enough of something to keep the turnies going....
Having been around a bit in time and space, I can tell you that there will be around five computers in the world in fifty years time that do 99 percent of the processing.
Massive processing power at the terminal device was a short blip in computer history. The only reason it was ever needed is for the very short time that we had microprocessors without a global, high speed, data communications network.
Ever since we started getting the network people have started to centralise resources again. From early (and abortive) attempts to run Access sales databases or ACT! from a shared network drive to SaaS offerings such as salesforce.com, centralising is the name of the game.
As the speed and reliability of the global fixed and mobile data networks improve, we will see an ever increasing predilection for central processing power.
Yours,
The Doctor
"As the speed and reliability of the global fixed and mobile data networks improve, we will see an ever increasing predilection for central processing power."
I think we have Daleks masquerading as the good Doctor here. Aside from the vulnerability central processing would introduce, You have to look at the probable behaviour of a few massive companies controlling that power.
They would end up controlling virtually all software development - "Sorry kiddies. Not interested in that program as it would compete with something we already offer."
Or they would rent space to software developers hoping to cash in - sort of a Home Shopping Network for software services.
And they would probably end up selling 'service bundles' like the cable companies sell television programming - "You need something other than the basic text editor contained in our 'Basic' package? Well we have part of an office suite in this other package you have to pay for! If you want all of it you will have to sign up for this third package."
They can have my processing capabilities when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
We have cheap, clean hydroelectricity coming out of our ears here in Québec; that's why we have so many aluminum smelters here. Why not drop a massive data centre out in James Bay? It could service all of North America *and* Europe, and save colossal amounts of carbon emissions.
This is a uniquely northern advantage; tropical hydro dams actually have methane emissions that make them about as bad as coal-fired plants but it's clean as a whistle in cold climates.
I'm unconvinced this is actually more environmentally friendly.
Waste heat in a server-farm usually needs more energy use in terms of air-conditioning to get rid off. Waste heat in people's homes make a small contribution to their central heating and so arguably is not waste heat ((in winter at least).
Power is transported at very high voltages to reduce transmission losses (which are most dependent on current flow). Is it really more power efficient to move many more low-voltage bits around, including all the processing and electricity usage of all the routers and switches en route?
Trog
Waddaya mean "threw out" ??? I still have my VT100 AND my VT220 and my (then latest) VT420 terminals !! Lack of attic space and threats of a divorce made me dispose of my teletypewriter; it did occupy a tenth of the attic space !!
@Steven Knox - blade servers - people who hand out sharp instruments prior to a little local nastiness !!
You're right. I have been banging on about how devices wasting energy in the home are actually neutral if you also have your heating on. Obviously if you have your aircon on then they are wasting energy as the aircon works harder.
Non-techies don't know the difference between a Megabyte and a Gigabyte so would not recognize that the latter takes a lot more energy to process. Thankfully hardware is staying at about the same performance but becoming more energy efficient. We should also see some improvements in software energy requirements as that gets speeded up. It amazes me how quickly a Vista laptop drains it's battery, so that will have to be fixed too.
Just put the server farms next door to the new nuclear power stations that the government's going to approve. That way you get cheap, (relatively) reliable power, with similar lifetime carbon emissions to wind, and you don't have to float your servers out to sea, or put them on the top of a hill in the middle of Scotland.
is that every manifestation of it will produce metabolic or digestive post processing emissions. In the animal reign, it is normally referred to as shit.
Shit happens...
Happens to be eventually biofuel. Grid all existing drains of a big town into a central thermal-valorizer from where to obtain natural gas for fuelling powerplants.
Then place server farms near there or where u think it is smarter.
The point is (after 10 years in IT) that all that I've done exists as long as there's
electricity applied. Otherwise my valuable creation is worth less than digestive
post-processed animal emissions.
As long as we will be able to eat, there will be some sort of sustainable resources.
Can u imagine the tons of resources we are literally flushing everyday in such places like London, Rome, Tokyo or NY??
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
