Driving past a sign for an ISP recently, I was struck by certain elements of the supply and demand equation. The sign boasted of low prices, fast access and a wealth of supplementary services along with your server space.
I remarked to myself, that the deals looked pretty good. This was remarkable in itself because the sign was in English but located in the Algarve.
The next thing that grabbed my attention was the temperature read out on the dashboard of the car. It read 34c with the time at about 11:30. I thought to myself that the power and cooling of any large IT infrastructure must be an issue in such environments, particularly the cooling.
Much has been said of late on the power and cooling question about locating data centres in particular where they can be easily powered and cooled. The near ubiquity of fast connections around Europe means that it really doesn’t matter very much, from a connectivity perspective at least, where a data centre is. So, if, as has been suggested, data centres should be located in places such as Sweden or Norway, where cooling and indeed power, are less of an issue than inside the M25 in the UK, or inside the M50 in Dublin for that matter, where does that leave the likes of our southern European neighbours? Should the plucky Algarvian ISP or data centre give up?
It would appear not. The attitudes to cooling in particular seem to stem not from the industrial usage, but everyday acquaintance. Take for example, the average shopping centre in a southern city in Portugal. It has a bank of chillers that would dwarf the average data centre set up due to the fact that there are such large spaces, a relatively open environment and lots of pesky people walking around in it giving off heat. That is before machinery in the building is taken into account and then there’s the likes of restaurants and other such exothermic businesses within the same complex.
When people are simply accustomed to having air conditioning (AC) where they buy a loaf bread, arguably, when it comes to industry, it is also taken for granted. That is not to say that the power consumption of the AC would be negligible, but rather, it would be accepted far more readily than elsewhere, where that element may be less a part of daily life.
It might be carried forward then that the designers of a data centre or the like in such countries may be less mindful of the issue, looking at other things with greater caution.
To be honest, I really don’t know, but I was certainly interested by the advertisement for the local ISP. It was new, with time limited offers that indicated it may not long term display. To me it smacked of a regular campaign as opposed to a one shot deal.
It led me to consider whether a little bit of context is being lost as companies consider the issues around cooling in particular for IT infrastructure. If the question is asked about siting data centres in remote, cool regions, what are the criteria considered for shopping centres? Of course, access for people is an issue, but do the designers ask how they are going to cool it and whether the ambient environment can take the burden? I wonder.
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