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Apple Athenry data centre

weshtawake

What a great country when a couple of crank objectors can scuttle plans for a multi Euro "green" investment by one of the biggest corporations in the world. One of the objectors I note lives in Wicklow where, obviously, he would be seriously impacted by the development....not!

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dok_golf

Why is this thread in Galway City , not in Galway County??? I object!!

JRant

dok_golf wrote: »

Why is this thread in Galway City , not in Galway County??? I object!!

Couldn't get planning permission to put it into the county thread.

[Deleted User]

dok_golf wrote: »

Why is this thread in Galway City , not in Galway County??? I object!!

Because that's where threads go to die

Greaney

Zzippy wrote: »

How many actual, full-time skilled jobs would this data centre have created? I've heard similar data centres employ 20-30 people full-time, most of whom are maintenance technicians/support staff. Would a short-term construction boom for Athenry really bring that much long-term value to the town? With no guarantees that any of the contractors/sub contractors would be local. 20-30 jobs isn't really enough to create this much fuss, or fuel the claims of a disaster for the West and accusations of denying people's children a future...

Just puzzled how people think this is so big, when really, it isn't.

The comment at bottom of this article from The Times is from someone who built and ran some of the first data centers in the country.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/net-results-data-centres-need-to-power-down-their-energy-requirements-1.3561745

[Deleted User]

The recent news of the food innovation campus at the Teagasc site will far exceed the level of benefit to Athenry that a DC would have brought.

Its anticipated "to create at least 360 jobs in over 40 businesses in the food and drinks industry, injecting over €11.5m in payroll in the region and facilitating the development of 500 new products across the West of Ireland."

€4m food innovation campus gets planning approval

http://connachttribune.ie/e4m-food-innovation-campus-gets-planning-approval-911/

Greaney

Yes indeed, and many have been saying that, but it just doesn't leave folk as ……... star struck.

gctest50

What it was really about :

https://www.breakingnews.ie/business/ulster-bank-seeking-judgment-for-22m-against-three-brothers-over-unpaid-data-centre-loans-854000.html

[Deleted User]

Supreme Court told planning law “radically misapplied” in Apple Athenry case

The law was “radically misapplied” by An Bord Pleanála when they gave the go ahead for Apple to build an €850 million date centre in Athenry the Supreme Court has been told.
While Apple has decided to give up its plans for a data centre in Athenry after the project spent years in legal limbo, the Supreme Court is still hearing two objectors’ case.

The central part of the objection has always been whether An Bord Pleanála was obliged to consider the environmental impact of eight data halls, Apple’s masterplan for the site, instead of just the one hall which was contained in the application

Full story here - https://www.galwaydaily.com/news/supreme-court-told-planning-law-radically-misapplied-in-apple-athenry-case/

dubhthach

Meanwhile Facebook have just finished their Phase 1 and 2 of their 800m+ Clonee Data Center campus on the Meath/Dublin border. DC 1 and 2 up and running, DC3 in construction with DC4 and DC5 going through planning.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0914/993768-facebook-data-centre/

300 full time staff on site, meanwhile Amazon are in planning process for monster DC campus a stone's throw away at the N2, who would have thought that cloud providers could benefit from having the actual instances/customer data running in low tax country and thus would get around the arguments the French etc have been raising about where Tech sales should be taxed?

Mrs OBumble

If there are 300 staff on site, its wayyyy more than a data centre.

salmocab

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

If there are 300 staff on site, its wayyyy more than a data centre.

It’s not it’s just a data center nothing else

dubhthach

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

If there are 300 staff on site, its wayyyy more than a data centre.

Well yeah it's two operational DC's (each of which are on order of 5-10x size of standard DC) and another one under construction (with 2 more in planning), so it's a case of probably over provisioning early given the competition in Dublin with Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Engine and Microsoft Azure. (when it comes to Staff hiring/retention)

Either way they don't have anyone out there who doesn't work for the 'Infrastructure' team. Of course given their global spread some of the staff are gonna be SRE's (Site Reliability Engineer's) with on-call responsibility for other core parts of their infrastructure.

But sure what would I know I've only been in and out of data centers professionally for the last 15 years

[Deleted User]

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

If there are 300 staff on site, its wayyyy more than a data centre.

:rolleyes:

salmocab

RoboKlopp wrote: »

:rolleyes:

She thinks it’s a base for a Bond villain

[Deleted User]

Mrs OBumble wrote:

If there are 300 staff on site, its wayyyy more than a data centre.

RTE says 300 permanent staff, not 300 staff on site at all times. With 3 shifts per day, 7 days a week thats 21 shifts you need to cover for any 24-hour role.

So 1 security guard works 5 shifts a week, means you need 4.2 security guards employed permanently for there always to be a physical security guard there at all times.

For there to be 5 data centre technicians there at all times, you need to have 21 DCTs permanently employed. Look at the size of the place. Add in NOC engineers, SOC analysts, Site reliability engineers, even a barebones operation could easily have 300 staff working there.

flazio

Turning back to Athenry, what is being built on the Galway side of the town? Getting a bridge over the Derrydonnell road and everything.

[Deleted User]

flazio wrote: »

Turning back to Athenry, what is being built on the Galway side of the town? Getting a bridge over the Derrydonnell road and everything.

The next part of the ring road

dilallio

flazio wrote: »

Turning back to Athenry, what is being built on the Galway side of the town? Getting a bridge over the Derrydonnell road and everything.

Is it this?
https://connachttribune.ie/e4m-food-innovation-campus-gets-planning-approval-911/

dok_golf

Access to the new Presentation Secondary school

ezstreet5

dubhthach wrote: »

Meanwhile Facebook have just finished their Phase 1 and 2 of their 800m+ Clonee Data Center campus on the Meath/Dublin border. DC 1 and 2 up and running, DC3 in construction with DC4 and DC5 going through planning.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0914/993768-facebook-data-centre/

300 full time staff on site, meanwhile Amazon are in planning process for monster DC campus a stone's throw away at the N2, who would have thought that cloud providers could benefit from having the actual instances/customer data running in low tax country and thus would get around the arguments the French etc have been raising about where Tech sales should be taxed?

Impressive. Is this now the largest data centre campus in Ireland on a MW basis? I'm counting only about 20 vehicles in what appears to be the main employee carpark "over the bar" of the H-shaped building, and there may be a few site vehicles in there. That's a bit underwhelming.

salmocab

ezstreet5 wrote: »

Impressive. Is this now the largest data centre campus in Ireland on a MW basis? I'm counting only about 20 vehicles in what appears to be the main employee carpark "over the bar" of the H-shaped building, and there may be a few site vehicles in there. That's a bit underwhelming.

100s of people work in that building

[Deleted User]

ezstreet5 wrote: »

I'm counting only about 20 vehicles in what appears to be the main employee carpark "over the bar" of the H-shaped building, and there may be a few site vehicles in there. That's a bit underwhelming.

You have no idea when that photo was taken? I know Google Maps updated their photos of Galway recently, and most industrial estates are quite empty. Photot could be taken in the evening, or at the weekend

ezstreet5

Deleted User wrote: »

You have no idea when that photo was taken? I know Google Maps updated their photos of Galway recently, and most industrial estates are quite empty. Photot could be taken in the evening, or at the weekend

The photo was taken Saturday, 23rd June 2018, between the hours of perhaps 06:00 and 10:00 (based on the length of the shadows). It shows that the "skeleton crew" for the facility is about 20 people. No doubt there are many more '9-to-5' employees Monday through Friday - perhaps reaching several hundred. It is what it is. I understand that FB employ more per sq. metere than other data centres. It's a useful exercise to look at the carparks of other hyperscalers in Ireland, USA, and elsewhere to gauge employment levels. And perhaps IDA Ireland should do what is routinely done in the States, which is to require the data centre developer to commit to a minimum employment level and average wage as a condition of development consent.

dubhthach

ezstreet5 wrote: »

Impressive. Is this now the largest data centre campus in Ireland on a MW basis? I'm counting only about 20 vehicles in what appears to be the main employee carpark "over the bar" of the H-shaped building, and there may be a few site vehicles in there. That's a bit underwhelming.

Well if they only have two Data halls operational then I'm not sure it is. The Microsoft site in Grangecastle is probably a close call

What's interesting about that site (which is primary Azure site in all of Western Eurasia) is there is a traditional colo Datacenter nearby in the form of Equinox's Dub02. The size difference between Microsoft and Equinox really stands out as a good way of showing the scale of Hyperscale operators.

Anyways to go back to Clonee, I can count 169 car spaces (plus 8 disabled spaces) in that image. That's for just 2 Data halls (out of 8 that have planning). Central Torus is obviously for operations/common functions between the two halls.

I do see in their publicity video considerably higher occupancy, but was probably taken during the week as oppose to on a Saturday.

Of course the question is how Facebook spilt their staffing. I imagine ye gonna have at least three shifts of standard 'NOC' guys working, plus given location and eventual size of location people who are 9-5'er's (or partial shift) who are stuff like 'Site Reliability Engineers' (as Google terms them) or 'Data Center Automation Engineer' which seems to be one of roles currently been advertised for Clonee
https://www.facebook.com/careers/jobs/1659992674099447/

That sounds like a job in range of 70-100k+/year salary, given emphasis on Big Data analysis etc.

Given they had their official opening in September I imagine they went live probably during the summer though it could be earlier.

salmocab

There are 8 data halls running in FB with 4 more coming online next year

ezstreet5

dubhthach wrote: »

Well if they only have two Data halls operational then I'm not sure it is. The Microsoft site in Grangecastle is probably a close call

What's interesting about that site (which is primary Azure site in all of Western Eurasia) is there is a traditional colo Datacenter nearby in the form of Equinox's Dub02. The size difference between Microsoft and Equinox really stands out as a good way of showing the scale of Hyperscale operators.

You are probably right - Microsoft are probably still king. DUB03 thru DUB05 (to the northwest and not shown) are an additional 40MW. Altogether, when construction on DUB09 thru DUB13 is complete, MSFT will be 180MW on 44ha. (For reference, Apple was to be 240MW on 197ha).

Turning to a slightly different topic, I wandered down to the RDS for Host in Ireland's Data Centres Ireland 2018 conference last week. With regard to the size/scale and energy use of hypersacale facilities, two innovations caught my eye. First, South Dublin Council appear committed to develop a district heating system to use waste heat from Amazon: https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicTenders/ViewNotice/207744.

Second, there were two exhibitors advocating immersion cooling. 3M has developed a two-phase system: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-us/applications/immersion-cooling/, and a Swiss company, Immersion4, has developed a single-phase solution: www.immersion4.com/. While the single-phase solution seems simpler (and therefore preferable), the general shift from air cooling to liquid cooling promises to reduce energy consumption by >30% (over free air cooling) and data centre building area by >80%. The technology seems fairly mature, and would indeed transform the industry. Thoughts?

[Deleted User]

Dafuq does any of the this have to do with the Apple yoke?

ezstreet5

Deleted User wrote: »

Dafuq does any of the this have to do with the Apple yoke?

Everything. If Apple developed an immersion-cooled DC, it would require one-sixth the data hall area (rather than a remote 197ha commercial forest). It would use 30% less energy, and could be located adjacent to a developed area where a district heating system may be feasible.

[Deleted User]

The project was canned

dubhthach

Deleted User wrote: »

The project was canned

More then likely another hyperscaler is gonna step in, well that's what the grapevine is saying. It really depends on how the final court case goes.