Commodity Data Center Design James Hamilton 2007-10-08

Commodity Data Center Design James Hamilton 2007-10-08 [email protected] http://research.microsoft.com/ jamesrh

Containerized Products Caterpillar Portable Power Nortel Steel Enclosure Containerized telecom equipment Rackable Systems Concentro 1,152 Systems in 40’ (9,600 cores/3.5 PB) Datatainer ZoneBox Google WillPower Will Whitted 1/21/2007 Sun Project Black Box 242 systems in 20’ Rackable Systems Container Cooling Model Petabox Internet Archive Brewster Kahle 2

Cooling, Feedback, & Air Handling Gains Intel Intel 1/21/2007 Verari Tighter control of air-flow increased delta-T and overall system efficiency Expect increased use of special enclosures, variable speed fans, and warm machine rooms CRACs closer to servers for tighter temp control feedback loop Container takes one step further with very little air in motion, variable speed fans, & tight feedback between CRAC and load 3

Shipping Container as Data Center Module Data Center Module – Contains network gear, compute, storage, & cooling – Just plug in power, network, & chilled water Increased cooling efficiency – Variable water & air flow – Better air flow management (higher delta-T) – 80% air handling power reductions (Rackable Systems) Bring your own data center shell – – – – Political/Social issues – Just central networking, power, cooling, security & admin center Can be stacked 3 to 5 high Less regulatory issues (e.g. no building permit) Avoids (for now) building floor space taxes USA PATRIOT act concerns & regional restrictions Move resources closer to customer (CDN mini-centers) Single customs clearance on import Single FCC compliance certification Distributed, incremental fast built mini-centers 1/21/2007 4

Manufacturing & H/W Admin. Savings Factory racking, stacking & packing much more efficient – Robotics and/or inexpensive labor Avoid layers of packaging – Systems- packing box- pallet- container – Materials cost and wastage and labor at customer site Data Center power & cooling expensive consulting contracts – Data centers are still custom crafted rather than prefab units – Move skill set to module manufacturer who designs power & cooling once – Installation design to meet module power, network, & cooling specs More space efficient – Power densities in excess of 1250 W/sq ft – Rooftop or parking lot installation acceptable (with security) – Stack 3 to 5 high Service-Free – H/W admin contracts can exceed 25% of systems cost – Sufficient redundancy that it just degrades over time At end of service, return for remanufacture & recycling – 20% to 50% of systems outages caused by Admin error (A. Brown & D. Patterson) 1/21/2007 5

Systems & Power Density Estimating datacenter power density difficult (15 year horizon) – Power is 40% of DC costs Power Mechanical: 55% of cost – Shell is roughly 15% of DC cost – Cheaper to waste floor than power Typically 100 to 200 W/sq ft Rarely as high as 350 to 600 W/sq ft – Modular DC eliminates impossible shell to power trade-off Add modules until power is absorbed 480VAC to container – High efficiency DC distribution within – High voltage to rack can save 5% over 208VAC Over 20% of entire DC costs is in power redundancy – Batteries able to supply up to 12 min at some facilities – N 2 generation at over 2M each Instead, use more smaller, cheaper data centers Eliminate redundant power & bulk of shell costs Resource equalization 1/21/2007 6

Where do you Want to Compute Today? Slides posted soon to: http://research.microsoft.com/ JamesRH 10/08/2007 7