By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Contributor
What can the designers of data centers learn from bees?
Plenty, says MDES, a data analysis company in the Netherlands. Looking at the ways bees work together in hives, the company has come up with Ozzo – a concept for a renewable energy data center, which will hopefully be built in the Amsterdam metropolitan area by 2015.
Its design is modeled after bees working in hives, with a network of connected nodes representing different types of data. In developing the plan, designers identified three kinds of data: hot, cold and frozen.
· Hot data is accessed and modified daily. It is in continuous use. It requires the most energy of the three types. So it is stored in a location near the user to be retrieved quickly and used. Hot data would use a system of water cooling and be powered by the sun. The Netherlands has 100,000 electricity distribution centers in diverse residential locations, where hot data nodes could be placed. · Cold data is accessed but rarely modified. It requires medium energy. It will be located at stand-by locations, such as at bridges over rivers. It would use rack-level cooling and be powered by the wind.· Frozen data is accessed rarely and never modified. More than 80 percent of data is frozen data. It requires little energy use. It will also be located at stand-by locations, in mostly open areas. It will be powered by biomass electrical generation.· The three kinds of data areas will also communicate with each other. In addition, residual heat will be used for heating the buildings and facilities in the vicinity. Given that energy use is one of the highest costs in operating a data center, Ozzo may prove to be a popular concept. It is looking for investment partners. It already has financial backing from local cities in The Netherlands. In a related matter, Sean Wang, president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute International, the California-based affiliate of Taiwan’s ITRI, said last week that the institute is developing a data center prototype – that is housed inside a shipping container – to drastically cut costs at a time when there is potential for the new designs in light of the growing popularity of cloud computing.
Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet’s InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Erin Harrison
» More Smart Data Centers Featured Editorial
View the Original article