"Google has taken the strategy to the next level. Rather than using chillers part-time, the company has eliminated them entirely in its data center near Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, which began operating in late 2008 and also features an on-site water purification facility that allows it to use water from a nearby industrial canal rather than a municipal water utility... The climate in Belgium will support free cooling almost year-round, according to Google engineers, with temperatures rising above the acceptable range for free cooling about seven days per year on average. The average temperature in Brussels during summer reaches 66 to 71 degrees, while Google maintains its data centers at temperatures above 80 degrees. So what happens if the weather gets hot? On those days, Google says it will turn off equipment as needed in Belgium and shift computing load to other data centers. This approach is made possible by the scope of the company’s global network of data centers, which provide the ability to shift an entire data center’s workload to other facilities." - × × ×

Ветряки по мере распространения стали играть большое значение в местных экологических балансах (нарушая его). Через какое время, интересно, то же самое произойдёт с «датацентрами без коробки»? И, переходя чуть дальше, когда дата-центрами начнут обогревать дома? И когда появятся первые датацентры в Арктике и Антарктике? - × × ×

Оо, прекрасное: «The ability to seamlessly shift workloads between data centers also creates intriguing long-term energy management possibilities, including a “follow the moon” strategy which takes advantage of lower costs for power and cooling during overnight hours. In this scenario, virtualized workloads are shifted across data centers in different time zones to capture savings from off-peak utility rates.» - × × ×

с 2010 года, например, датацентр будет обогревать лондонские дома: http://www.informationweek.com/news... . в Швейцарии что-то греют уже сейчас. - courant

о-хо-хо "the company typically uses manual tools to manage data center level outages and downtime. “Teams regularly practice failing out of or routing around specific data centers as part of scheduled maintenance,” he said. “Sometimes we need to build new tools when new classes of problems happen.” вот оно, место подвига неизвестных админов. - Maхx Tee

“follow the moon” — это значит, что от большой latency будут страдать жаворонки и прочие дневные, а совы будут по ночам получать отзывчивый сервис - Ещё быстрей Гонсалес