5 ms·

Microsoft suggests heating your home with “data furnaces”

18 points by ukdm 15y ago

Thieum22 15y ago
"The main problem with Data Furnaces, of course, is physical security." *The main problem with Data Furnaces, of course, is summer.
- seles 15y ago
  Microsoft, here is a marketing tip: release ideas like this in the winter!...
- aridiculous 15y ago
  Perhaps the enclosure could be separated from the room (much like an underground water boiler) and a valve could be used to switch between seasons. My main problem with the study is that they probably didn't factor in overhead costs. Once the finances make sense — if they ever do — you can probably bet on some kind of success. Corporations are one track minded and will follow the bottom line. The tricky part will be changing consumer behavior.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Imagine, if you will, that you have a computing furnace. When you turn it on, it makes itself available to the cloud. You receive credit for the cycles used, enough to pay for the electricity it consumes. On hot days, you turn it off. This seems very much like having your own windmill connected to the grid. In the case of computing furnaces, there would be more capacity in the winter and at night. But at some point when bandwidth and hardware become cheap enough, these would be feasible even if they don't run 24/7/365.
  - kevinchen 15y ago
    The problem is, what if somebody stores their data in your server, and then you decide to turn it off? Will the data have to be automatically mirrored on several other servers (inefficient) or will it have to be mirrored when you want to shut off your computing furnace (slow)?
    - raganwald 15y ago
      In my future, all data is distributed P2P like torrents, as is all computation. The only correct architecture for a server is that to turn it off, you simply turn it off :-) But I was thinking more about computation than data, even though the article author is thinking of data. So EC2, not S3.
jimktrains2 15y ago
I used to work at a supercomputing center. The building where the machines where housed had offices above it (they were housed in a nuclear research facility, so security was already high) and the building management had to turn the heaters on twice: once to test them and once when we had all the machines down for a while for major across-the-board upgrades.
Symmetry 15y ago
That's why I overclock my desktop and start using Foling@Home in the winter.
molbioguy 15y ago
In exchange for providing power to the rack, home and office owners will get free heat and hot water -- from the article This only makes sense for the commercial data center that is already using the electricity to power the rack. For homeowners, this is like using electric space heaters, which is very expensive. Not a good deal. And as @Thieum22 pointed out, what about summer?
- aquark 15y ago
  I really have to wonder if the (original) author thought about that line when he wrote it! It is an interesting definition of 'free'. There is a reason people don't choose to put in electric heating when other options are available..
frobozz 15y ago
As others have said, summer is the problem. Even in the fairly chilly parts of the world where people live, one typically doesn't need to heat ones home in the summer. At least not much, and only on unseasonably cold days. However, people still need year-round hot water for washing themselves and their posessions. That said, I doubt that the summer domestic requirement for hot water is anything like the possible output of an economically scaled data furnace. Instead, I'd suggest heating municipal or club swimming pools and preheating water or air for showers, hammams and saunas at spas and leisure centres. These need year-round heating, even in warmer parts of the world. Another possibility would be to house datacentres in areas of high population density, and pipe warm water from there to nearby homes and businesses. Just like the District Heating Schemes of urban power stations. Both of these latter solutions fix the security, access, and last-mile problems. They can also even out the seasonal demand problem by not attempting to provide all the heat and hot water.
baconner 15y ago
This is hilariously impractical. Who is going to service these things? When summer hits can you stand a huge hit in processing power when everyone turns their servers off?

18 points by ukdm 15y ago

"The main problem with Data Furnaces, of course, is physical security." *The main problem with Data Furnaces, of course, is summer.

seles 15y ago
Microsoft, here is a marketing tip: release ideas like this in the winter!...
aridiculous 15y ago
Perhaps the enclosure could be separated from the room (much like an underground water boiler) and a valve could be used to switch between seasons. My main problem with the study is that they probably didn't factor in overhead costs. Once the finances make sense — if they ever do — you can probably bet on some kind of success. Corporations are one track minded and will follow the bottom line. The tricky part will be changing consumer behavior.
raganwald 15y ago
Imagine, if you will, that you have a computing furnace. When you turn it on, it makes itself available to the cloud. You receive credit for the cycles used, enough to pay for the electricity it consumes. On hot days, you turn it off. This seems very much like having your own windmill connected to the grid. In the case of computing furnaces, there would be more capacity in the winter and at night. But at some point when bandwidth and hardware become cheap enough, these would be feasible even if they don't run 24/7/365.
- kevinchen 15y ago
  The problem is, what if somebody stores their data in your server, and then you decide to turn it off? Will the data have to be automatically mirrored on several other servers (inefficient) or will it have to be mirrored when you want to shut off your computing furnace (slow)?
  - raganwald 15y ago
    In my future, all data is distributed P2P like torrents, as is all computation. The only correct architecture for a server is that to turn it off, you simply turn it off :-) But I was thinking more about computation than data, even though the article author is thinking of data. So EC2, not S3.

jimktrains2 15y ago

I used to work at a supercomputing center. The building where the machines where housed had offices above it (they were housed in a nuclear research facility, so security was already high) and the building management had to turn the heaters on twice: once to test them and once when we had all the machines down for a while for major across-the-board upgrades.

Symmetry 15y ago

That's why I overclock my desktop and start using Foling@Home in the winter.

molbioguy 15y ago

In exchange for providing power to the rack, home and office owners will get free heat and hot water -- from the article This only makes sense for the commercial data center that is already using the electricity to power the rack. For homeowners, this is like using electric space heaters, which is very expensive. Not a good deal. And as @Thieum22 pointed out, what about summer?

aquark 15y ago
I really have to wonder if the (original) author thought about that line when he wrote it! It is an interesting definition of 'free'. There is a reason people don't choose to put in electric heating when other options are available..

frobozz 15y ago

As others have said, summer is the problem. Even in the fairly chilly parts of the world where people live, one typically doesn't need to heat ones home in the summer. At least not much, and only on unseasonably cold days. However, people still need year-round hot water for washing themselves and their posessions. That said, I doubt that the summer domestic requirement for hot water is anything like the possible output of an economically scaled data furnace. Instead, I'd suggest heating municipal or club swimming pools and preheating water or air for showers, hammams and saunas at spas and leisure centres. These need year-round heating, even in warmer parts of the world. Another possibility would be to house datacentres in areas of high population density, and pipe warm water from there to nearby homes and businesses. Just like the District Heating Schemes of urban power stations. Both of these latter solutions fix the security, access, and last-mile problems. They can also even out the seasonal demand problem by not attempting to provide all the heat and hot water.

baconner 15y ago

This is hilariously impractical. Who is going to service these things? When summer hits can you stand a huge hit in processing power when everyone turns their servers off?