The New Data Center Capital of America 162
crimeandpunishment writes "Move over Silicon Valley, here comes... Buffalo. Where the weather might actually be a big advantage. The recent opening of Yahoo's state-of-the-art data center, which uses the region's cooler climate and a high-tech 'chicken coop' design to dramatically lower energy costs is getting a lot of attention in the industry."
skunkpost, on the other hand, (Score:5, Funny)
Why stop at Buffalo? (Score:2, Funny)
Buffalo? (Score:4, Funny)
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo?
(Yes, I have karma to burn)
Re:Why stop at Buffalo? (Score:3, Funny)
NIAGARA FALLS!
Slowly I turned. Step by step. Inch by inch...
Re:Buffalo, New York (Score:4, Funny)
Canada is where it should be (Score:5, Funny)
Cheap hydro power, no summers ( well actually that is not true we had summer last year, it happened on a Thursday). You can also use the excess heat to warm up the parking garage of the employees because the cars will blow their frost plugs even if they are plugged into block heaters and the batteries will freeze if they don't have an electric blanket around them. -60c (-100c with wind chill) is horrible, most people run their cars 24/7 when it gets really cold.
Re:Canada is where it should be (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds good! All you need is for somebody to dig through that permafrost to lay some fiber-optic cables...
After all, a data center needs some way to actually, I don't know, deliver data...
Re:Not as cool as it used to be (Score:1, Funny)
These days, though, with advances in lights out management, you can build a huge data center and only need a few low-pay button pushers
That confirms my belief that America has turned into Soviet Russia.
Re:Canada is where it should be (Score:3, Funny)
They are real. Isn't that enough of a reason to live there?
Re:Canada is where it should be (Score:3, Funny)
Winnipeg would be perfect. Google should build a server farm so big it would produce so much heat that the snow in the city would melt, forcing them to open up the floodway in the winter.
yeaaaaah!
Re:Silicon valley.... (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with your concerns. Many Silicon Valley startups have taken to using expensive Monster Brand DVI cables to link the computers in Buffalo with the monitors in the Valley.
That said, many techies claim you can just use ordinary lamp cord for the DVI signal, true techies know that Monster Cable uses sophisticated techniques to cut out jitter and chromatic abnormalities often introduced in transit over the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I personally would not hire an admin who did not use monster cabling.
Some have taken to frame-grabbing. They capture the screen in Buffalo several times second, compress the image using sophisticated algorithms such as GIF89 or TIFF, and the send them using ordinary phone lines as pulses of one or zero. It is very expensive, and only the most well funded start-ups use this technique.
Re:Good on ya, Buffalo (Score:3, Funny)
... but the rest of America is still sore at those four consecutive Super Bowls you guys made us sit through with your losing teams.
Maybe they can convert Ralph Wilson stadium into a data center once the Bills relocate to Toronto?
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Funny)
Really, Really Need A Job? (Score:5, Funny)
Skilled help may be needed by these new data centers. So all they have to do is talk high quality employees into the joys of living in Buffalo. If the cold doesn't kill you and boredom doesn't finish you off the state income taxes may have you wander about hoping that you will freeze to death.
Re:Silicon valley.... (Score:3, Funny)
It is prone to jitter. Plus only an analog connection can accurately reproduce the full color gamut that today's high end systems can generate. The same way audiophiles can hear the jaggyness of digital audio, many skilled developers can see the ones and zeros of such a digital link. With analog monster brand DVI cables, it is a pure waveform.
Your suggestion to use DSL is silly. DSL is prohibitively expensive. So expensive that only two kings in Prussia have such technology. Besides--what use is connecting two computers with a high speed link?