There's an intriguing paper published by Microsoft in which the authors argue that it could be possible to send servers used in cloud computing data centres to houses and office buildings and use them as a primary heat source.
The Data Furnace: Heating Up With Cloud Computing paper believes that the problem of heat generation in data centres can be turned into an advantage with servers placed into buildings to provide low latency cloud computing for offices or residents.
The authors suggest this approach improves quality of service by moving storage and computation closer to the consumer, enhances energy efficiency and eradicates the cost of cooling the servers by reusing their heat.
It's a fascinating example of lateral thinking. There are a number of issues to be resolved if it is ever going to take off such as the physical security of the servers, the need for zero touch management and the fact that data furnaces cannot exceed the power and bandwidth capacity of the buildings where they are housed.
Still, kudos to the authors - Jie Liu, Michel Goraczko, Sean James and Christian Belady at Microsoft Research and Jiakang Lu and Kamin Whitehouse at the University of Virginia Computer Science Department - for even thinking of such an idea. Pity they didn't take the time to go through the article and correct all the references to "Data Furances".
Actually this is happening in a small way already. The Netshelter CX by APC, commonly referred to as the 'Server Room in a Box' sits in the open office and recycles the server air back into the office environment, only it does so so quickly that the servers inside the soundproofed clever enclosure are constantly fed with room temperature air, something else the likes of Google and Microsoft have advocated in past papers. Its a really interesting subject and with Cloud and also importantly virtualization shrinking the onsite footprint of IT, we need infrastructure solutions that meet these new requirements.
Best wishes,
David
@kellsystems