Euro bit barn biz has hot prospect: immersion cooling for colo customers

GlobalConnect claims to be the first colocation provider in Europe to offer immersion-based cooling to customers, and expects to expand the service to all of its datacenters in future. The company, a network and datacenter services provider across Northern Europe, has deployed the latest submersion cooling technology in its …

[Scott Broukell]

Well then, if GlobalConnect were to locate such a datacenter in the UK, can I suggest that they do so in Bath.

[John H Woods]

"Submerged cooling is a real game changer"

I agree. I can see the result of this being a far lower reliance on big cloud providers for Large Enterprises. Unlike SME's they already have the multinational footprint; multiple premises (in which, with compact liquid cooling, any small room could be a mini datacentre); the staff (or at least the purchasing power); and, most importantly, the sheer scale that smooths their compute, network and storage demand. I predict that a pattern will develop of spinning up VMs, containers &c. in AWS, Azure et al. for dev and test but migrating established production functionality back to "edge" to avoid big cloud bills.

Sure, Big Cloud can do it cheaper, as they have economies of scale. But given that's a matter of diminishing returns, the question is, by the time they have charged you their margin, are you actually saving any money? I suspect that, for a lot of LEs, that answer is, if not firmly in the negative, at least not well proven, even before you price in the risk of loss of control of your technology.

[DS999]

Re: "Submerged cooling is a real game changer"

Why would you think it would reduce reliance on cloud? Immersion cooling requires more specialized (and therefore expensive) employees to handle it, and that extra performance made possible requires more energy input. Sure it will save money, but the breakeven price versus standard cooling is pretty high so you have to be pretty big to play - otherwise you risk your BOFH who is an expert on immersion leaving and having trouble hiring a qualified replacement.

Immersion is a good thing, but it raises the bar for competence in a lot of ways and reduces the pool (sorry) of qualified applicants.

[Kev99]

Why not build a colo in lapland and leave the windows open?

[Korev]

What about the weather, the rain-dear

[well meaning but ultimately self defeating]

Because you need a dielectric fluid

not a die of electric shock fluid

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll have this soon anyway

We're near a lake, and it has flooded before.

I thus predict we'll be facing immersion one way or the other soon :).

(yes, we *are* moving that DC)