FLOATING DATA CENTERS

The concept of floating data centers refers to building data centers on a floating platform in form of a ship or what is referred to as barges (a flat bottomed boat used for carrying heavy loads). The idea of this technology is to power the data centers by ocean currents and using sea water to cool the servers.

A couple of companies have been involved with this technology. Google started to build what was insinuated to be a floating data center between the year 2010 and 2012. It was a 4-storey tall data center on a ship in San Francisco Bay. The original Google project was to implement the floating data center through the motion of ocean surface waves to create electricity, and a cooling system based on sea-powered pumps and seawater-to-freshwater heat exchangers. The concept visualized floating data centers located 3 to 7 miles out at sea. It was meant to allow Google the flexibility to move the data center to where they are needed without breaking it down or building new ones. Although, since 2013 nothing has been heard clearly about this development from Google. 

Figure1 Google Proposed Floating Data center

Recently, a company called Nautilus Data Technologies has decided to incorporate this idea for their data center. The Nautilus design took a different approach from Google’s design by mooring the barges at a pier, which takes out the functionality of harnessing wave power for electricity. The IT equipment is housed inside modular data halls on the deck, containing servers in racks with rear-door cooling units. Just below the deck, in a water tight hold, the cooling distribution units, UPS units, electrical and mechanical equipment are located.

Figure 2 The Nautilus DataTechnologies proposed Floating Data Center

The cooling system has two separate piping loops and a heat exchanger. Cool water from the bay goes in through an intake a couple of feet below the barge. The water is filtered so as to eliminate fish and any other impurity, which then moves to the heat exchanger. On the other side of the heat exchanger a fresh water cooling loop feeds the water-cooled rear-door systems on the racks. The intake system uses copper plating and titanium piping to reduce the effect of salt water on the equipment. Nautilus Technology claims to have worked closely with the Navy in order to address the humidity and condensation issues that arise on a floating vessel.

For Nautilus Technologies, they believe this is a timely solution to the problem of drought in California. Nautilus claim that the benefit of this approach is that 100% of the water which they use in the process is returned to the environment directly back into the body of water and not through evaporation.

The floating data center concept definitely comes with the advantage of reducing the overall cost of infrastructure especially with respect to the cooling facilities. This technology also slashes the huge cost of real estate and property taxes.

On the other hand some experts think that floating data centers are at a high risk of water damage.