So Simple, A Caveman Could Run Your Next Data Center?

      by Wyatt Walter

I really enjoy reading about redesigns in data centers and this one at Iron Mountain certainly is no exception. According to the report, the company is working on an experimental data center approximately 22 stories underground in a cave. The data center uses its massive limestone exterior as a kind of heat sink, literally allowing the rock walls around it absorb the heat. It also can feed off an underground lake as liquid cooling for the air conditioners when necessary.

The experiment is a clever, yet incredibly simple idea. It’s about as far away from Google’s alleged experiments with data centers on the ocean that we read about last year as one can get. Feeding off the rock walls around it for cooling, these certainly seem a bit more sturdy and safer to me than a floating data center, but they would definitely be inconvenient to get to (though, I suppose having to hop on a boat or helicopter would be fairly inconvenient as well :) ).

There are plenty of other areas and environments where we can feed off the environment for keeping data centers cool. For instance, in the area where I live we have pretty cold winters. If we would simply pull in cool air from outside, it could cut down on unnecessary resource consumption for cooling quite a bit. Of course, in the winter we have to watch that the humidity doesn’t drop too far, but it would certainly help.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Dec 15th, 2009

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