Yahoo!
co-founder David Filo has been praising Yahoo's new data centre in Lockport,
New York which has a really foul design.
Dubbed the 'Yahoo! Computing
Coop' because it looks like a place where chickens live, the Coop is
designed to limit the need for expensive cooling. It has been built near
Buffalo which is famous for its cold winds that chill the soul to the
bone.
Yahoo thinks that is eggactly what is needed to keep a server cold and
have an annualised average PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.1 or
better. The Yahoo Computing Coops will be five metal prefabricated
structures. Each of the coops will have louvre walls to allow free cold air
to flow into the area housing the computer equipment and cool the
servers. (That's nothing compared to
Blue Peacock, Britain's chicken-powered nuclear land mine.sub.ed.)
The complex has been rotated 10 degrees clockwise in order to make
sure it can take advantage of prevailing winds during the months it needs
the cooling. Each of the coops will have a peaked roof, with a "penthouse"
running along the top of the structure to manage the release of waste
heat from the hot aisle.
It will use electricity from the renewable
hydroelectric dam at Niagara Falls. Of course feathers might fly if water
gets into the chicken coop.