Google Unveils Its Container Data Center

Four years after the first reports of server-packed shipping containers lurking in parking garages, Google today confirmed its use of data center containers and provided a group of industry engineers with an overview of how they were implemented in the company’s first data center project in the fall of 2005. “It’s certainly more fun talking about it than keeping it a secret,” said Google’s Jimmy Clidaras, who gave a presentation on the containers at the first Google Data center Efficiency Summit today in Mountain View, Calif.

The Google facility features a “container hanger” filled with 45 containers, with some housed on a second-story balcony. Each shipping container can hold up to 1,160 servers, and uses 250 kilowatts of power, giving the container a power density of more than 780 watts per square foot. Google’s design allows the containers to operate at a temperature of 81 degrees in the cold aisle. Those specs are seen in some advanced designs today, but were rare indeed in 2005 when the facility was built.

Google’s design focused on “power above, water below,” according to Clidaras, and the racks are actually suspended from the ceiling of the container. The below-floor cooling is pumped into the hot aisle through a raised floor, passes through the racks and is returned via a plenum behind the racks. The cooling fans are variable speed and tightly managed, allowing the fans to run at the lowest speed required to cool the rack at that moment.