Yahoo's "Chicken Coop" Data Center Design 111
1sockchuck writes "Yahoo has come up with a data center design called the Yahoo Computing Coop, which it says will make its new data center in Lockport, NY one of the most efficient on earth. The design features 120-foot by 60-foot metal prefabricated facilities with louvers on the side to support free cooling, and a peaked roof to manage the release of waste heat from the hot aisle. Chief Yahoo David Filo said the name was adopted 'because it looks like something chickens live in.' The $150 million data center in Western New York, which was announced earlier today, will run on cheap hydro power from the Niagara River."
Hot Air (Score:1, Interesting)
But when you start getting power from the falls, you might be all washed up.
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Tip your Waitress.
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Microsoft has been building these for 2 years.
Everybody will be, 2 years from now.
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um...grats? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm rather mystified that there's still interest in Yahoo. Although I'm aware that their hand-edited, directory-like coverage is actually popular in countries that use non-ascii character sets, Yahoo's search results haven't seemed competitive to me since '97.
Honestly, I'm not trying to troll; just wondering why a site that's stagnated for over 10 years now needs anything cutting-edge.
Anyone still using them? Have any insights why we ought to care what they're up to?
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Re:um...grats? (Score:4, Insightful)
So turn on iGoogle [google.com], and display all the extra info that you want on your homepage...
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igoogle is kind of the Firefox of search engines
With the free bonus of having everything you do tracked for someone elses profit.
You see what I like about firefox extensions is that they are really and truly working for me, they don't exist for the sole purpose of coaxing data out me for someone else.
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With the free bonus of having everything you do tracked for someone elses profit.
You say that like it's a bad thing. IMHO, Google's web history makes it all worth while. Once or twice a month, I'll use web history to track down something that I didn't feel was wroth bookmarking at the time, but now feel a need to revisit, sometimes even years after the original sighting. I'm willing to let Google use my historical data, as long as I'm also allowed to use it. I don't have to worry about whether I saw something at home or at work, on a PC or my iPhone, on my current hardware or on a V
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You say that like it's a bad thing.
It is a bad thing in my opinion. At the very least its certainly not to your benefit.
I'm willing to let Google use my historical data, as long as I'm also allowed to use it. I don't have to worry about whether I saw something at home or at work, on a PC or my iPhone, on my current hardware or on a VM that only lived three weeks two years ago; as long as I was logged into Google, it's all in the same data store and I can search it from any device with a web browser.
You real
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You live in a stone age village in Afghanistan, right? Check out noscript and adblockplus for Firefox. This is the age of enlightenment. Enlightened people can be logged into iGoogle, and still block adsense and all the other crap they disapprove of. The class for "Weaponized Bronze" will be right after "Safer Spearchucking". Have a nice day, boys and girls.
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Enlightened people can be logged into iGoogle, and still block adsense and all the other crap they disapprove of.
You sound like the sort of person who would by a car with an exploding engine and rationalize it by saying that as an enlightened person with a fire extinguisher and tool box you can keep it running the way you like.
An enlightened person would buy a car that works the way it ought to without constantly having to keep fighting fires.
The class for "Weaponized Bronze" will be right after "Safer Spea
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Almost every car you see on America's highways have exploding engines. Of course, living in the stone age, you don't understand that. The internal combustion engine is powered by a succession of controlled explosions. You may or may not wish to experiment, but mixing gasoline and oxygen in carefully metered proportion, followed by the introduction of a spark, ALWAYS results in an explosion. ALWAYS.
You sound like the sort who would buy a non-exploding engine, then wonder why the car won't carry you to wo
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Your car's ICE explodes? Sounds like it's running a little lean.
Next you're going to tell me that your guns explode. If that's true, I'm surprised to see you posting here!
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Almost every car you see on America's highways have exploding engines.
Heh. Nice try to save it. But no, no they don't.
There is an important semantic difference between 'exploding engine' and 'internal combustion engine'. Just man up and admit it.
Besides the real point of my argument was that suggesting to use greasemonkey and adblock and noscript etc in order to make igoogle palatable to use is essentially admitting igoogle is anti-user. The smart thing to do is patronize services that aren't so offensive i
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Semantics? If you say so. All the same your engine is exploding all the time.
As for Google - name one thing that they do, that all the others don't do. "Oh, Evil Google!! They are tracking internet usage!"
I presume that you read the terms of service before you use ANY internet service or feature. I mean, read them, all the way through the obfuscated fine print? They all presume to have the right to track your usage. Some few restrict that right to their own site(s) while others don't.
It's a free for
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...people can be logged into iGoogle, and still block adsense and all the other crap they disapprove of.
You are logged into their servers. They don't need all that fancy javascript and other voodoo to track you. They know exactly who you are because you're sitting there screaming it at them. All they need to do is log it straight to your account.
Sure, AdSense on other sites might be blocked but anything you do on their servers while logged in is easily logged on their end.
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Or conversely, go to Yahoo's search page [yahoo.com] and get the "clean" look.
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Which is why a typical Google search returns 16 million hits.
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That comes down quite rapidly, though, once you start specifying things like her hair colour... ...or so I'm told...
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I have 10 years worth of email on their servers.
POP3, anyone?
Not that you should abandon Yahoo Mail just because you can... I'm just saying them having your email archive is little deterrent.
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Umm, Yahoo changed to a robot based crawler listing way back in 2002 for their main search results. Prior to that point, they had search engine results complimenting their directory.
In the past, they've used Inktomi (which they now own) as well as Google to power their searches. In 2003, they went to their own internal search engine.
Now that being said, they still maintain a web directory, but it has lost a lot of significance.
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Path dependency (Score:1, Offtopic)
I'm not a fan of Yahoo! but my Dad (born in 1960) has been using it as his primary e-mail and instant messaging service for years. It does everything he needs it to and he doesn't have the motivation to switch services. As far as I can tell the Yahoo! e-mail service has a comparable feature set to Gmail and Yahoo! messenger has all of the features of Google Talk (IE pop-up e-mail alerts, VOIP, messaging), except that it has been around for far longer.
Yahoo! isn't "in style" anymore and I was never a huge fa
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Yes, I did notice your nad...
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Anyone still using them?
I still have a Yahoo mail account catching spam for me. Does that count?
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Re:um...grats? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, that mediocrity might actually be driving some of their hardware/facilities innovation. If you are kicking ass on the software side, getting favorable ad rates, lots of buzz keeping the investors happy no matter what your P/E is, etc. you can get away with some infrastructure inefficiency(under good management you will still work to reduce this; but not doing so is easier than doing so, and you'll survive). If, however, your buzz is gone, your ad rates are slipping, and you have sharks gnawing on your stock, you can't afford to run a sloppy operation. If your revenue per visitor is poor, catering to that visitor had better be damn cheap.
Now, if a company is too far gone, or under the influence of Wall street oriented buzzsaw management, they won't have the talent needed to innovate, having lost/sacked their R&D people, and it is game over; but if a company is on the ropes but not yet down, or if their margins are simply not very good, you might expect them to do some interesting infrastructure stuff. Dell would be another one I'd put in the category. Software/design stories about them tend to be a yawn, or an embarrassment(Adamo, WTF?) but their logistics and supply chain guys are probably all cyborg ninja assassins.
Re:um...grats? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint: There's much more to do on the web than search, and thus Yahoo! (and Google) provide a lot more services than search.
Honestly, not trying to troll or flamebait, but are you really as ignorant as your posting makes you sound? Are you really too lazy to visit http://www.yahoo.com [yahoo.com] and spend a little time just reading the page and clicking around on the services offered?
I'm still using them because Google offers nothing to match the Yahoo! page I use as a homepage. (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb [yahoo.com].) I still use Yahoo! mail for some functions as it's UI beats Gmail hands down. I still track my finances at Yahoo! because their management and analysis tools are superior to those provided by Google. I use Flickr because the collaboration and other tools it provides are superior to Picasa's. Etc... Etc...
Google's predominance in search and advertising blinds people to the 'also ran' status of so many of it's other services.
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I don't see how it can be 'much more usable' given how straightforward the page I link to is. (Not to mention the page I link to is a sports page, not an entertainment page.)
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I don't even comprehend your second statement. Are you unaware that iGoogle is essentially a pretty front-end to a bunch of RSS feeds, all chosen by the user? There can be as much or as little "media company" influence as you desire.
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I still use Yahoo! mail for some functions as it's UI beats Gmail hands down.
Heretic!...Troll!... get off my third favourite website! ;)
Honestly, the only part of Yahoo that I personally cared about was Jumpcut. [jumpcut.com]
Flickr and games.yahoo.com (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, they *did* other things quite well. Then they decided to mess with it to jump into that web 2.0 thang. Their groups suck. Their TV listings suck. Their calendaring and email both suck. Their authentication mechanisms (Some groups I'm a member of use Yahoo! groups) are braindead. No ical. no pop/imap without paying. tv listings that focus more on the advertising than the listing, etc.
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Oh, and don't forget about the Web Chat that people use at work because they think IT can't see what they are doing.
(Note: Sys Admins, get this [formessengers.com] neat util.)
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I personally like http://finance.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] much better than http://finance.google.com/ [google.com]. The portfolio, quote and chart information is much better with yahoo.
Additionally, instant messaging. Why should I pick a platform/protocol/client that none of my friends or family use? I guess I could spend plenty of time getting them to switch, however, then they in turn have to convince their friends/family to convert as well.
Google is great at search, but beyond that.. not that much else attracts me to it from an a
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Re:um...grats? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm mystified by the "cheap hydro power from the Niagara River" part.
Since the story doesn't claim that they are funding the construction of a new hydro-electric dam, they are just saying 'well, we're close to a dam, so we'll claim that our power needs are clean, and you bastards further away, that were going to get this electricity if we didn't use it, you are using electricity from those ozone-destroying, greenhouse gas-generating, scarce fossil-fuel burning power plants'.
Why do we let companies get away with these stupid claims. Unless they actually are responsible for building the clean power source, they should be denied the ability to claim they are using so-called 'clean' energy just because they happen to be physically near a pre-existing 'clean' energy source.
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I'm mystified by the "cheap hydro power from the Niagara River" part.
I believe that part had far more to do with their decision. Everything after that is just an extra description saying where it's from.
As for your claim of them "stealing" the power from other people:
The first phase will receive 10 megawatts of hydro-electric power from the New York Power Authority, which will also provision 15 megwawatts for the second phase of construction.
At the end of 2006, the New York Power Authority completed an upgrade to the Niagara power project [nypa.gov]. The station can now produce 2,400 megawatts. This study [nypa.gov] [pdf] puts the peak load at a little under 2.2 megawatts.
As you can see, there is plenty of power
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So in your opinion data centers should be built in the middle of a desert where they need to be cooled heavily all year by a coal plant?
Yahoo gets a subsidy on their power to operate a data center (and create jobs) in Niagara County, because most of the power generated by a huge public work in Niagara County benefits people in larger cities far away who pay more for the electricity. There is a savings on transmission costs, the weather in Niagara County is very favorable to cooling a data center, there is
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Wha? Sorry, dude, but I don't buy it. The data center is near the dam, and is getting its power from there. So if you consider hydroelectric power clean (most people do) then their power is clean. Electricity takes money and effort to move around; it's not as if Yahoo is somehow causing people in West Virginia to burn more coal than they otherwise would have.
Of course, the reason data centers are near hydro power is because it's cheap and reliable, and because it doesn't matter too much exactly where a data
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I'm mystified by the "cheap hydro power from the Niagara River" part.
Yahoo chose to build new here - a $150 million dollar investment.
It's a bit of a adjustment to think of "cheap hydro" as being as significant to the data center as to the mile long chemical plants that line the upper Niagara River.
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It's laudable that they built in an area where the climate is cooler, reducing their need for powered cooling systems, and building near a power source is also good, to reduce energy transmission losses.
But claiming that 'they' get the green energy just because they situate themselves closer to that particular pre-existing energy source, when that same power would, if not used by them, go to people's homes or other businesses that are further way is ridiculous, because those other people need that power any
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There are lots of other services though. Yahoo auctions is extremely popular in Japan. I've never heard any
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Also mobile-phone (cell-phone, keitai whatever you want to call it
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It seems more like you're trying to flame bait people.
I use several Yahoo services, I've forgotten about their directory system that you've brought up. Yellow pages is good, and I switch between them and Google for mapping & directions. I like the formatting of information in their finance section, though Google has the nifty chart applet, so I go between both services there.
Re:um...grets? (Score:1)
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Lockport is more for meth heads. There are lots of GM workers there with a lot of free time and the extra cash from their union pay scale leaves them with many recreational options.
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Phew (Score:4, Funny)
For a moment there I panicked about a chicken coup trying to overtake Yahoo. Although chickens can not make it any worse for Yahoo than it already is.
The image of millions of chickens rising up against the tyranny of Yahoo and running around all excited is simply awesome. I, therefore, petition that Yahoo at least change the name to Chicken Coup if not go all the way to welcoming their new chicken overlords!
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chickens in choppers?
Will this Yahoo idea live up to the hype? (Score:3, Interesting)
I certainly hope it does. You see, I have doubts on the viability of whatever Yahoo does. A company that shuts down three services in less than 8 months (Y!Live, Jumpcut and Maven Networks), you begin to wonder whether they know what they are doing.
On my mail account, Yahoo have decided to make it more bloated with Facebook/Twitter like services while requiring money to mark more than 500 addresses as spam addresses. By the way, you cannot redirect mail from a Yahoo account or access it via POP3 without shelling out cash. Insane with the likes of free Gmail out there.
I have also noticed that Yahoo search is capturing any invalid URLs I enter into the Google search page...adding to my agony and dislike of the company. If I want to search, I know where to go. Bottom line, Yahoo do not know what they are doing in my not so humble opinion.
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Lockport (Score:5, Informative)
Lockport is where the Erie Canal climbs the Niagara Escarpment.
The canal itself was and is a source of hydro-power - think of it as a 350 mile nineteenth century industrial corridor cut across upstate New York. The work of self-taught engineers and Irish immigrant labor - with no better tools available than the pick axe and black powder.
Lockport is a small city of about 20,000 that has been spared the frauds and fancies that have plagued the redevelopment of Niagara Falls. It is about 16 miles northeast of the SUNY Amherst campus.
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My 9th grade Social Studies teacher told the story that to motivate the workers to dig a certain distance, they would put a wiskey barrel at the stopping point for the day. Dig to there, and the rest of the day you have off and can drink your wiskey.
Either that was true and brilliant, or incredibly derragatory to Irish.
The teacher was Irish, so who knows.
The powder monkeys. (Score:2)
Dig to there, and the rest of the day you have off and can drink your wiskey.
a single barrel seems scarcely enough for the true Irish working man's thirst.
one story that probably didn't make your Social Studies class:
planting the black powder charges meant working in very tight places. so a local farmer's kid - a very young kid - would be hired on for the job.
WTF? (Score:3, Funny)
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DC is 6.5 hours away if you drive a Mustang and go down 219 through central PA. :)
Chicken or the Eggs? (Score:2)
Hey, I was just in a massive data center yesterday for a tour. (100,000 sq ft) They had a spare s390 sitting on the side of the room. Maybe Y! can borrow that baby and put on a few hundred linux and/or windows VMs...
Good news and bad news (Score:2)
I went to school in Rochester, NY, so I'm familiar with the area. The good news is that the power up there is obscenely cheap (if you're in a township that gets the hydro power) and that they should have no problem cooling the facility for much of the year. The bad news is that the snow gets so bad that they've, routinely, had to shut down the NY State Thruway West of Rochester during winter storms. Good luck getting to work in those conditions, they may want to consider setting up cots for the Admins.
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If you've lived here long enough, you know that shutting down the highway is only done for those that can't drive on snow (tourists). You take the inside route with any decent 4WD car and a good set of tires and you'll get to your job. I used to drive from Rochester, NY to Erie, PA (through Buffalo - I-90 is right besides the lakes all the way) in the middle of winter through the heaviest storms. Unless the University of Rochester shuts down there is nothing to worry about (they haven't in decades).
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As someone who lives in the area and works in downtown Rochester, I can state that we do not use U of R as our benchmark as to when to shut down.
It's a function of how much of a hard-ass your boss is. If he/she owns a 4WD and has a good work ethic, you're screwed.
I've had to dig out waist deep snow down my driveway to get to work as it wasn't called off.
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Hehe, actually I went to RIT. Also, I was more referring more to the Buffalo area where this data center is being built. In my experience, Rochester's location directly south of the lake gives it a little cover from the worst of the lake effect snow. In my time there, I can remember the NY State Thruway authority shutting down the thruway west of Rochester on a, reasonably, regular basis while east of Rochester tended to stay open much more.
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Another PILOT scam. (Score:1)
2 doors? (Score:1)
Because if it was 4 doors, it'd be a Computing Sedan!
Thank you, I'll be here all night. Please tip your server.
Filtering (Score:2)
If they don't have really good filters on those louvers, it'll *really* look like a chicken coop inside...