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posted by janrinok on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the 'its-not-about-the-money,-money,-money' dept.

In yet another example of how distributed systems sometimes work better than centralized ones, the hardware engineers at Microsoft have come up with a new battery-backed power supply for their homegrown servers that allows for massive – and expensive – battery rooms to be eliminated from the cloud giant's datacenters.

The new power supply, which Microsoft calls the Local Energy Storage (LES) unit, was designed as part of the Open Cloud Server hyperscale system that the company donated to the Open Compute Project last year and updated last October with some significant tweaks. In the spirit of openness that might seem a bit strange coming from Microsoft, the new LES specification is being opened up through the Open Compute community as well.
...
With the LES power supply-battery combination, Microsoft is making its engineering available to anyone, and it is explaining to people just how much more efficiently they can run their datacenters with this subtle shift from massive central batteries to distributed small ones. It is also doing a little engineering, too.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:19AM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:19AM (#248727) Journal

    TFA says:

    And importantly, the batteries are not in the power path between the electrical source and the server motherboards and components. Rather, they extend the life of the bulk capacitors in the power supply in the event of a power failure in the main feeds.

    These guys aren't looking for long term operation in the event of a failure, they are just looking for something to brief handle fail-overs to their generators or other mains-power sources.

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    • (Score: 1) by Some call me Tim on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:42AM

      by Some call me Tim (5819) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:42AM (#248741)

      I don't have a problem with that. As someone who has had to maintain those giant lead acid battery plants, I'd gladly walk through a server room and replace these battery packs once every two years or so. Those plants are dangerous, I've seen a 16" Crescent wrench explode into vapor when a tech who didn't properly tether his tools dropped one across the main buss. He was lucky he had his PPE on, otherwise he'd have been horribly burnt. We never found any part of the wrench bigger than 1/8".

      --
      Questioning science is how you do science!
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 13 2015, @01:09PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @01:09PM (#248839) Journal

        A story my a shop teacher told us was of of a haphazard tech who was tightening terminals on a battery bank with a wrench while wearing his wedding band. His finger was severed. It was stuck to the terminal and his wound was instantly cauterized making reattachment impossible. Scary indeed.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:47PM (#248938)

          What did he feel?

          • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:01PM

            by Freeman (732) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:01PM (#248946) Journal

            Pain.

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            Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:31AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:31AM (#248748)

      That is what battery backups are for. If you have seen them used for anything else, whomever designed the DRP should be fired.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:39AM (#248729)

    Wow, Microserfed saves $.25, and some how this is news here on SoylentNews? "Doing a little engineering, Micro$oft style, yeah!" Be afraid, be very afraid.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 13 2015, @07:56AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday October 13 2015, @07:56AM (#248770) Homepage
      Yeah - I was thinking "how much was this battery?". Much more than about 20 cents and it wouldn't be worth the effort.
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:55AM (#248732)

    This sort of arrangement has the downside of requiring, at some point in the future, a lot of menial labor at each battery-backed power supply to replace said batteries. Hope they've factored that into their cost savings.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:24AM

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:24AM (#248745) Journal

      Because the people designing this are engineers, and they know the number of batteries involved and the longevity of each battery, you can probably rest assured that machine would be ready for scrapping by the time the battery needed replacement or the replacement would be as simple as running down the isle untwist cap, eject current battery, insert new, step to next. Probably wouldn't have to take the machine down.

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    • (Score: 1) by Some call me Tim on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:27AM

      by Some call me Tim (5819) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:27AM (#248746)

      That's nothing compared to the cost of maintaining the battery plant and associated UPS systems. See my post above. Also, take a look at arc flash videos on youtube. Getting rid of those systems is a huge safety advantage.

      --
      Questioning science is how you do science!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:48AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:48AM (#248759)

        Even Panasonic's lithium ion cells aren't immune to fire or explosion [panasonic.com]. I found a page [gizmag.com] which claims that doesn't happen to nickel-iron cells, at least not because of high charging or discharging rates. With this arrangement Microsoft is using, if there were a power anomaly, it might overstress the cells in multiple servers at the same time. Is putting out several small fires, right inside the servers, in a data centre preferable to dealing with one titanic explosion (as lead-acid tends toward) in a battery room?

        Aren't the main advantages of lithium-ion that it can be formed into arbitrary shapes, and that it has a high energy-to-mass ratio? It's the obvious choice for a mobile phone, but I'm surprised that it's economical for this stationary use.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:15PM

          by sjames (2882) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:15PM (#249033) Journal

          I've seen the result of a lead acid battery strand failing. The answer is yes, a few 18650s "venting with flame" here and there is far preferable.

    • (Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday October 14 2015, @01:53AM

      by arslan (3462) on Wednesday October 14 2015, @01:53AM (#249243)

      Yes they are called interns...

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by TheLink on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:04AM

    by TheLink (332) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:04AM (#248737) Journal

    Google has allegedly done this since 2005: http://www.cnet.com/news/google-uncloaks-once-secret-server-10209580/ [cnet.com]
    Facebook considered per server batteries too: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/11/27/should-servers-come-with-batteries/ [datacenterknowledge.com]
    But Facebook seems to have decided on a different approach that's "in-between": https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/inside-the-open-compute-project-server/10150144796738920 [facebook.com]
    http://www.cio.com/article/2847953/facebook-gives-its-server-racks-a-tesla-touch.html [cio.com]
    Facebook's approach might be more flexible for a "more normal" company/enterprise data center - since it means you have the option of plugging other stuff to battery-backed power (DC power switches etc).

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:17PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:17PM (#248880)

      Came to say the same thing. The article is actually pretty well balanced and they give plenty of credit to google. I also remember google said they had a custom motherboard and powersupply. The supply only gives +12V, no +5V lines. They figured out that it is more efficient to do DC voltage changes on the mobo than in the power supply.

      Google's does look simpler than Microsoft's but we're also comparing systems created ten years apart. Who knows what google is using now. I'd love to see a better picture of Microsoft's solution.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:37AM

    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:37AM (#248740) Homepage

    They only cut costs by 25¢? For an entire datacenter? That's taking penny pinching to an entirely new level....

    b&

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    • (Score: 1) by Some call me Tim on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:02AM

      by Some call me Tim (5819) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:02AM (#248743)

      Where did you get that number from? Honest question since the article mentions $31 million in saving for a 25 megawatt facility. Get rid of the battery plant and the UPS systems and that's a huge savings as far as I can see.

      --
      Questioning science is how you do science!
      • (Score: 4, Touché) by frojack on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:32AM

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:32AM (#248749) Journal

        Sigh....

        Read the title of TFS.....

        "Its a joke son, he keep pitchin’ ‘em and you keep missin’ ‘em”
        “He made a funny son and you’re not laughin’
        /Foghorn leghorn.

        --
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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:41AM (#248750)

      Ixnay on the quarter comments! I tried, and they were not received as funny! Maybe the headline could have been written in a less ambiguous way, but then we would not be nickel and dime-ing it to death. Sterling. Pence. Pfennings.

  • (Score: 2) by Adrian Harvey on Tuesday October 13 2015, @07:19AM

    by Adrian Harvey (222) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @07:19AM (#248767)

    I've had servers in a Datacentre with no UPS batteries. They had flywheel UPSs. Those UPSs could generate power from the spinning flywheels for about 16 seconds. The generators would start in 4!

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by iwoloschin on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:06AM

      by iwoloschin (3863) on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:06AM (#248798)

      That's all fine and dandy until your flywheel gets loose. Just make sure it's pointed at a swamp, or your mortal enemies, or something like that.