9 Data Centers: Unexpected Beauty And Creativity
, October 04, 2012 Most data centers are boring boxes--but not all. Take a look at a data center that houses a supercomputer in a chapel, or an underground data center with James Bond-styling, or a solar-powered data center, and much, much more.
A Desert Data Center
A hot dry climate doesn't usually come to mind when thinking about a place to locate a data center. But IO, the co-location facilities provider, found a way to make it work when it converted a former water bottling plant in Phoenix, Ariz., into a data center in 2008. The company takes advantage of low power rates at night to freeze plastic globes filled with water using a solution of glycol and water. Those iceballs are used during the day to chill the glycol mix, which in turn is used in a heat exchanger to chill water for the data center's cooling system. Image courtesy of IO.
