Apple looking for help building 'next generation' of data centers
With a job title of "Data Center Construction Project Manager," a successful candidate would "become an important part" of the team building Apple's next-gen data centers, as noted by Wired. The role is fairly broad and involves managing data center projects from "all levels administrative, cost, and contracting perspective."
It's not immediately clear whether Apple's plans for a "green" data center in Prineville, Oregon, count toward this so-called next generation, but the company has begun work there on a "small, initial phase," according to Prineville city planner Josh Smith.
"It's just kind of a first phase that they've thrown together to get things started on the ground," Smith recently told The Oregonian.
This first phase appears to be just 10,000 square feet, just a fraction of the 160 acres that Apple purchased for the new data center. Prineville city engineer Eric Klann told Wired last month that Apple plans to have eight modular data center units installed on the property before eventually building a bigger facility "similar" to a nearby Facebook server farm.
Local officials have said that Facebook "kind of helped recruit" Apple to the area last year by providing representatives with a tour of its facility.
Facebook's data center in Prineville, Oregon | Source: Facebook.
The Cupertino, Calif., company confirmed last month plans to build a data center in Oregon, but it declined to reveal what about the project would make it environmentally friendly.
Apple also operates a large-scale server farm in Maiden, N.C. The company is currently in the process of building fuel cell and solar installations to provide green power to the facility, which supports Apple's iTunes and iCloud products.
15 Comments
They are looking for a construction project manager. Most likely someone with a civil or architectural engineering degree. This is a standard requirements for this type of position. But one criteria that might be difficult to fulfill and that is "Experience managing large Data Center construction projects". There are probably few "large" data center construction in the last few years and they are most likely designed and built by different consultants and contractors.
Construction project managers don't have to be experienced in a particular set of building type. They need to be experienced in the construction process. Other criteria are standard though. They are probably looking for someone with 10 to 15 years experience in engineering.
Seven years ago I was a deputy project manager for two years before I decided to do my masters and PhD. The time I spend on my graduate study is not considered experience. It sucks but that's how things are!
Thats where Apple's core competency lies...
I suggest Apple modify its Apple TV solution, to make it the world's best server hardware package.
- Add Thunderbolt port, including Power over Thunderbolt - so one cable will handle power, data, and everything required. Should support full Thunderbolt spec of 20Gbps.
- 8 GB Flash for local storage, and all units can access Petabytes of data on external SANs via the Thunderbolt port - at faster speeds than they can access local drives.
- Use A6 processor, with 2 options. Quad CPU cores with 1 GPU core for CPU intensive operations, and Single CPU core and Quad GPU cores for Graphics rendering, etc.
- 2 GB DDR3 RAM.
- Remove HDMI port, Wifi capability, to reduce cost. Retain LAN port with support for PoE, in case of cheaper deployments that do not use Thunderbolt.
- Server should be fan less, with excellent heat dissipation through conduction - would generate very little heat compared to usual servers.
- Create 1U formfactor server boxes, with built in Thunderbolt hubs, and ability to hold 16 of these micro servers in a 4x4 layout, with Ample room for ventilation, heat dissipation, etc. It is also possible to design these cases with Liquid Cooling channels for even higher duty cooling. Because of the height savings, it is also possible to have 4 3.5" SATA/SCSI HDDs in this 1U server - so that there can be local RAID as well. If Apple does not want to use SATA disks at all, they can also use 32 Apple micro servers in a 1U case - by slightly reducing the height or totally removing the existing case.
The overall cost for this server would be about $3000 ($1600 for the 16 Apple Servers, $600 for the 4 3TB SATA drives, $600 for a Thunderbolt hub supporting 16 ports, and $200 for the case) with 400 watt power supply.
And for this $3000, the server will support 64 Cores, 32GB RAM, 128GB Flash, 12 TB HDD, and very low power consumption for the SATA configuration. Without SATA, the server would have 128 cores, 64GB RAM, 256GB Flash memory and would cost about $5000.
In terms of Software, Apple already has Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL ready to take advantage of this sort of server. Mac OS is already capable of efficiently utilizing multiple processors and multiple cores. Thunderbolt is already a mass market solution, and has been implemented across Apple's entire product range - extending it to Apple MicroServer should not be too difficult for Apple.
Thunderbolt is expensive, but considering that HDMI is being removed, it should more or else compensate for the extra cost of Thunderbolt. 2GB RAM will easily be compensated by the cost of Wifi/Bluetooth module.
Thats where Apple's core competency lies...
I suggest Apple modify its Apple TV solution, to make it the world's best server hardware package.
- Add Thunderbolt port, including Power over Thunderbolt - so one cable will handle power, data, and everything required. Should support full Thunderbolt spec of 20Gbps.
- 8 GB Flash for local storage, and all units can access Petabytes of data on external SANs via the Thunderbolt port - at faster speeds than they can access local drives.
- Use A6 processor, with 2 options. Quad CPU cores with 1 GPU core for CPU intensive operations, and Single CPU core and Quad GPU cores for Graphics rendering, etc.
- 2 GB DDR3 RAM.
- Remove HDMI port, Wifi capability, to reduce cost. Retain LAN port with support for PoE, in case of cheaper deployments that do not use Thunderbolt.
- Server should be fan less, with excellent heat dissipation through conduction - would generate very little heat compared to usual servers.
- Create 1U formfactor server boxes, with built in Thunderbolt hubs, and ability to hold 16 of these micro servers in a 4x4 layout, with Ample room for ventilation, heat dissipation, etc. It is also possible to design these cases with Liquid Cooling channels for even higher duty cooling. Because of the height savings, it is also possible to have 4 3.5" SATA/SCSI HDDs in this 1U server - so that there can be local RAID as well. If Apple does not want to use SATA disks at all, they can also use 32 Apple micro servers in a 1U case - by slightly reducing the height or totally removing the existing case.
The overall cost for this server would be about $3000 ($1600 for the 16 Apple Servers, $600 for the 4 3TB SATA drives, $600 for a Thunderbolt hub supporting 16 ports, and $200 for the case) with 400 watt power supply.
And for this $3000, the server will support 64 Cores, 32GB RAM, 128GB Flash, 12 TB HDD, and very low power consumption for the SATA configuration. Without SATA, the server would have 128 cores, 64GB RAM, 256GB Flash memory and would cost about $5000.
In terms of Software, Apple already has Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL ready to take advantage of this sort of server. Mac OS is already capable of efficiently utilizing multiple processors and multiple cores. Thunderbolt is already a mass market solution, and has been implemented across Apple's entire product range - extending it to Apple MicroServer should not be too difficult for Apple.
Thunderbolt is expensive, but considering that HDMI is being removed, it should more or else compensate for the extra cost of Thunderbolt. 2GB RAM will easily be compensated by the cost of Wifi/Bluetooth module.
They have already committed to the building the data center. They won't kill the data center or build a niche low volume server like you describe.
Thats where Apple's core competency lies...
I suggest Apple modify its Apple TV solution, to make it the world's best server hardware package.
- Add Thunderbolt port, including Power over Thunderbolt - so one cable will handle power, data, and everything required. Should support full Thunderbolt spec of 20Gbps.
- 8 GB Flash for local storage, and all units can access Petabytes of data on external SANs via the Thunderbolt port - at faster speeds than they can access local drives.
- Use A6 processor, with 2 options. Quad CPU cores with 1 GPU core for CPU intensive operations, and Single CPU core and Quad GPU cores for Graphics rendering, etc.
- 2 GB DDR3 RAM.
- Remove HDMI port, Wifi capability, to reduce cost. Retain LAN port with support for PoE, in case of cheaper deployments that do not use Thunderbolt.
- Server should be fan less, with excellent heat dissipation through conduction - would generate very little heat compared to usual servers.
- Create 1U formfactor server boxes, with built in Thunderbolt hubs, and ability to hold 16 of these micro servers in a 4x4 layout, with Ample room for ventilation, heat dissipation, etc. It is also possible to design these cases with Liquid Cooling channels for even higher duty cooling. Because of the height savings, it is also possible to have 4 3.5" SATA/SCSI HDDs in this 1U server - so that there can be local RAID as well. If Apple does not want to use SATA disks at all, they can also use 32 Apple micro servers in a 1U case - by slightly reducing the height or totally removing the existing case.
The overall cost for this server would be about $3000 ($1600 for the 16 Apple Servers, $600 for the 4 3TB SATA drives, $600 for a Thunderbolt hub supporting 16 ports, and $200 for the case) with 400 watt power supply.
And for this $3000, the server will support 64 Cores, 32GB RAM, 128GB Flash, 12 TB HDD, and very low power consumption for the SATA configuration. Without SATA, the server would have 128 cores, 64GB RAM, 256GB Flash memory and would cost about $5000.
In terms of Software, Apple already has Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL ready to take advantage of this sort of server. Mac OS is already capable of efficiently utilizing multiple processors and multiple cores. Thunderbolt is already a mass market solution, and has been implemented across Apple's entire product range - extending it to Apple MicroServer should not be too difficult for Apple.
Thunderbolt is expensive, but considering that HDMI is being removed, it should more or else compensate for the extra cost of Thunderbolt. 2GB RAM will easily be compensated by the cost of Wifi/Bluetooth module.
Um, how long did it take you to think/write this? Not that I read the whole thing... I did think it was pretty funny, however.
A pattern begins to emerge. Huge, widely dispersed server farms located far away from metropolitan areas. What are the strategic iCloud and Apple ecosystem implications?