It is interesting to speculate on the future once in a while. It isn’t so long ago that Intel was talking about future chips running hotter than the surface of the sun. Now IBM is trying to run chips at near absolute zero:
500GHz frozen chips on the menu at IBM – vnunet.com
It is looking like the data centre of the future is going to be a very inhospitable place. Maybe it will be practical to place them in a satellite and place them in orbit. The cost would be significant, but there are advantages too. In particular there is a lot of solar power available up there. There are a few problems with the plan though – network latency will be a significant issue. Disaster recovery planning will take on a few interesting aspects as well. OK, I’ll admit it this one is probably a few years away from delivery as a practical business plan. If you have some more creative ideas for the location of future data centres e-mail me or add them as comments when this bulletin appears on the web site. Let me know if I can use them in future editions, but also let me know if you want me to keep your name off it.
