Google's New Sea Based Data Centers
William Slawski, of SEO by the Sea, appropriately was the one who is reporting that Google is working on developing sea-based data centers that use hydroelectricity harnessed from floating platforms. The idea is a clever one - very green and very smart. The water can also be used for cooling. The patent filed in 2007 and granted April 28, 2009 details "a system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units." Some of the topics covered in the patent:
1. Wave powered generators such as Pelamis machines may power sea-based data centers and pumps to cool them.
2. Land-based data centers could also be used, taking energy from platforms floating on water.
3. The data centers might be contained in standard shipping containers, loaded aboard ships and connected to cooling and electrical systems aboard those ships. The ships may then be deployed to where they are needed. Google has previously been granted a patent for a Modular Data Center.
4. The patent notes in closing that electricity could also be generated from other sources to power data centers, such as sea-based wind generator farms and power from river currents.
5. A patent application from 2008, under the Exaflop LLC name, describes a way of cooling data centers using warm water cooling. Exaflop is headquartered at the same address as Google, and has filed a number of patent applications involving data centers. This patent filing anticipates the possibility of data centers in modular containers aboard ships.
