Comments on: Google uncloaks once-secret server

Unusually, the search giant designs its own servers. For the first time, Google unveils one publicly, showing a surprise built-in battery.

[arous]

That "server" looks like something I could "design" in my garage, BTW this was released on 4/1.

So I get that batteries on the motherboard are cheaper than a data center wide UPS. But walk thru the power outage scenario here: you lose power for an hour or three and drain the batteries. You now have to replace how many localized little batteries? Thousands? Do they recharge when the power comes back on?

[neg2led]

The batteries are rechargeable, and only have to last long enough for the backup generator to power up :)

[neg2led]

Clarification: batteries are automatically recharged by the PSU when main supply comes on

[man_w_balls]

I like the design. I see Hitachi Deskstar hard drives on there... and are those AMD processors?

I want to put a laptop battery in my desktop for redundancy.

[equdave]

Cool, but not a revolution in data center design. This design is really for large clustered services where the failure of one server is not going to be a problem. This design sacrifices uptime and data protection for efficiency. Perfect for Google, not going to work for large corporate data centers.

Redundant power supplies and large raid arrays are all about up time of that server. With the move towards virtualization in particular virtualized desktops, up time will be a driving factor. Losing two servers in a Google array is not an issue, losing two in your Citrix cluster is.

[BoeroBoy]

Imagine when all those hard drives are replaced with solid state (SSD) drives. Cooling, power, failures go way down and speed, efficiency, and recovered seek time go way way up.

[i_made_this]

A lot of us have been guessing but now we know - battery and all lol. A friendlier Google only can mean they're in process of updating their server architecture and the x86 hot-rodded mostly Opteron's (my guess) we're looking at are in process of being upgraded. But remaining low cost is key and the shipping container sourcing spec is fairly genius even if Schmidt copped the concept from his former employer. Nice article, C|NET! (april fools?? :p)

[ralfthedog]

All I can say is RENDER FARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jv]

Datacenter efficiency has been an issue since mainframe days.

For years we have discussed teh use of battereis to smooth power requirements while allowing for UPS capabilities. Smaller batteries can be more efficient and there is less loss due to proximity to device.

Batteries can also be used to smooth power demand. If batteries are sized and charged correctly they will act as a buffer to the line thus reducing peak demand. This has implications for the whole datacenter power system, cooling system and the overall equipment reliability.

All of this for just a few adjustments to how a system is deployed.

Step-wise refinement.

The shipping container idea comes from an disaster recovery company whose name I forget. About 15 years ago they built datacenters into containers ready to be dropped at the site of a disaster to support a damaged datacenter. The initial drawings published, I believe, in Electronic Design Magazine, were very much like teh Google drawings.

Google does some very nice work. Now Google...give us back teh XML output of the search pages without loading Google Destop or using any addons. (no API just a browser)

[howlann]

And no SCSI drives. Just plain old SATA.

[bradmyers2000]

I blogged about this about 2 years ago... along with a bunch of other Google ideas.

http://www.sys4dmin.com

[tek-ed]

http://www.evertek.com/viewpart.asp?auto=34049&cat=3
This is the Google Mobo prior to this model...Google released tens of thousands of these Mobos onto the refurb market last year. I picked up one at Geeks.com for $89 (can get them cheaper now though) and it included CPUs. 2 XEON 2.4 Ghz...max of 12gb ram onboard...gig-e networking..
The only downside is that you needed an ATX-E powersupply and a huge case...regular cases aren't big enough for the mobo...but after I put in memory (need server memory, but can get cheap now), power, heat sinks and fans, hard drive and case, I got a kicking server for under $300! Well worth it! Now it's running VMWare and 4 windows server VMs down in my basement!
Ed
web/gadget guru

[coda54321]

I like this story. I read it a few times. Kudos to Stephen Shankland.

[sargear]

I love the idea that it's all in a shipping container.
Now where's that Google container ship / road train? sailing the high seas, driving the highways, wirelessly searching the net.
terrific stuff.
I see a kids adventure book in this.

[marcusfriedman]

Let's see: an 1AAA container is 40' long. A standard rack is 23.6" wide. So in a best-case scenario, you could fit 20 racks side by side. Now let's assume that they can put two rows of racks on one container (that wouldn't leave enough space for circulation, but let's say it's possible for the sake of the argument). They you'd have a total of 40 42U racks, totaling 1,680 rack units. If each of the servers takes 2U, then there's only enough space for 840 servers.

I don't know if this is an April Fools' joke or not, but I can't understand how exactly you can put 1,160 2U servers on a 1AAA container, considering that you'd need more than 55 42U racks.

[neg2led]

Width is not the same as a standard rack, as they are built into the container (rather than being freestanding units) and probably over 42U high.

[admin44]

Since they are using only 12v power going to the motherboard, would it not be possible to simply eliminate the power supply entirely and provide 12v from a single external power supply (one that lives outside the shipping container and provides all the power to the container as a whole). This would eliminate the cost of thousands of individual power supplies and also remove the heat that these individual power supplies generate to the outside world where the the mother supply could simply vent it to the open air. This would make cooling costs go down inside the data center by a certain percentage and save more money as a result. Just a thought.

[Glen_Goss]

The problem with distributiong power at low voltage is the sized of the electrical conductors. 1,680 servers at 250w each would require delivering 35,000 amps per container. Short circuit protection would also become an issue with that much current avialable.

[EB_Mengel]

I would ask where is the RJ45? People have been doing this with miniATX for awhile, the laptop has been around for years. The power supply cord has the worng end showing in the second pic. I agree it is good to see them being inventive, but worth a patent, nothing is new, but they given out patents for anyone with the $1000.00 or so to get it.

[gonoszman]

The PSU number not suspicious?

If i have a 10KW servergroup and a 1KW light and aircon 1.1 "PU".
20KW 2KW
50KW 2KW

:)

april

[padapa0406]

If you visit the Computer Museum in Mountain View CA you can see the original server rack used by Google. Its layers of motherboards,hard drives and PSUs, seperated by cardboard. The new metal enclosure is a nice touch and the 12 volt PSU w/battery is smart.

[Dr_Zinj]

Batteries on each blade also eliminates the single point of failure problem a central generator entails.

Additionally, there is a minute, but definate difference in electricity delay based on the distance from the supply to each computer with a centralized system. Distributed backup batteries reduce that as a possible source of problems and probably greatly reduce spiking.

[FTLman]

And the pre-cursor to all this high-tech can be found at: http://www.thocp.net/hardware/univac.htm (Note any photographic similarities ??)