You’d expect a typical data centre to be air conditioned with massive electrical units working overtime to keep servers and other hardware at optimum temperature. But eBay is showcasing its green quotient by employing alternate methods for keeping its new Phoenix data center cool- use of hot water. The temperature of the data centre touches as much 115 degrees so it uses water from an outdoor tower tank. The water however touches 87 degrees on the hottest of summer days so its still cool enough to operate the heat exchangers that keep the facility’s servers from reaching the extreme temperatures where they might malfunction.

This effort has been tagged “Project Mercury” and is part of the retail giant’s effort reduce power consumption and reduce costs in the massive computing facilities. Something similar was also seen in Google’s case where they pushed for hotter data centers for they will run normally at temperatures which are higher than 80 degrees.
[Ubergizmo]