WSJ: Big tech firms seeking power

Sat Jun 17 08:01:16 UTC 2006

Seen few data centers:
- biggerst cages are about 500 servers, may be you can pack 1,000 servers;
- ok, how many cagses in the medium size building? I''d say, 100 - 200 (may
be less).

So, 1 building can handle 50,000 - 100,000 servers. A very big building, I
guess, can handle 450,000. But what for?
You can put it al together, but how you deliver input data and ship output
data from 450,000 servers?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Loftis" <mloftis at wgops.com>
To: "Alex Rubenstein" <alex at nac.net>; <nanog at merit.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: WSJ: Big tech firms seeking power

>
>
>
> --On June 16, 2006 5:24:27 PM -0400 Alex Rubenstein <alex at nac.net> wrote:
>
>
> > But wait, there is more. Just a point of comparison -- Oyster Creek
> > Nuclear Power generation plant, located here on the Jersey Shore,
> > produces 636 megawatts. You'd take one-tenth of that capacity -- in a
> > bulding that would sit on a 10 or 20 acre chunk of land. I put this into
> > the 'unlikely' category. The substation alone to handle stepping 68
> > mwatts from transmission to 480v would be probably 4 acres. And, 68
> > megawatts of power at 480 volts 81,888 amps. A typicall 200,000 sq-ft
> > multi-tenant office building has 1600 amps of service; this would be the
> > equivalent of 50 buildings.
> >
> > Having fun yet?
>
> I happen to know that a very large power line project was just finished in
> that area :)  (I have family that works for the company that did the job).
> It's a huge amount of power that's for sure.  I'm not sure what the exact
> route was, nor the endpoint right now, but when I did ask him at the time
> it didn't make sense....Now it might.  I'll talk to him again.
>
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>