Microsoft researchers wrote a paper in June 2011 that made a case for large computer servers as heaters. The part of me using my laptop as a heating pad agrees. They call this super-powered computational heater a Data Furnace or DF for short.
This paper makes three cases:
1) a smaller carbon footprint
2) reduced total cost of ownership per server
3) closer proximity to the users.
The first wins me over big-time as a concerned individual about the earth’s environment. I’ve been researching for years to see what’s working and what’s not in terms of reducing the carbon foot-print of a ever-rowing tech savvy World. It’s jus interesting how scientists can interface a prosthetic limb to a person’s brain so they can feel objects again, but reducing carbon dioxide emissions is near impossible.
The second, I can see the sense. But as far as hard numbers are concerned I’m not sure we can know until we try. In this argument the researchers are literally crunching numbers of a current day “data center” costs versus the proposed DF. This is done in general terms though, so the calculations are very likely off.
The last argument kind of excites me with prospects for a better browsing experience. Every person is in contact with a server while they’re online. Every time a URL is typed into the address bar the request, or what you typed, has to be referenced at the location of the server which hosts that information before it can be displayed on the computer’s screen. Imagine how quick that response time would be if the server were heating your home a few feet away.
On the down side, what happens in the summer when you’re already sweating bullets but you really want to be able to check your Facebook? This idea isn’t full-proof, but the fact that a big-name computer company thinks localizing servers into the users’ homes gives me great hope for the future of computer use.
