Search and Maxing Out the Grid
July 2, 2009
I recall meetings at Halliburton’s old Nuclear Utilities Services unit we talked about the problem of sucking too much power from the grid. The grid, of course, is a metaphor for a complicated set up of devices and cables that move power from where it is produced to an end point or end points. I found the reference in the Slashdot article “NSA To Build 20-Acre Data Center In Utah” a blast from the past. My thought is that the problem of power sucking data centers is not on most folks’ radar. Along with the deteriorating roads and bridges in rural Kentucky, the power generation industry faces a similar problem. Search requires big data centers. Green yapping aside, as the volume of data increases, the need for megawatts goes up. Green is good but not even zippy chips and clever ideas like uninterruptable power supplied by conventional flashlight batteries is enough. Exciting times and costs ahead for those with big data centers. Plumbing may make the difference between the winners and the losers in search and content processing.
Stephen Arnold, July 2, 2009
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