How does keeping something cool with hot water make senses? Well, this is exactly what eBay is doing with their data center which lies smack in the Phoenix desert, where the temperature there can actually hit highs of 115 degrees Fahrenheit, so hot water actually keeps the data center cool. Interesting revelation, don’t you think so? eBay claims that the water in their outdoor tower tank will touch 87 degrees on the hottest of summer days, and it is more than cool enough to ensure that the facility’s servers will not touch the extreme temperatures and arrive at a malfunction status. Solving this desert problem would mean it data centers elsewhere too, will be able to remain cool without batting an eyelid. This effort has been dubbed “Project Mercury,” and is part of eBay’s effort to reduce power consumption and reduce costs in the massive computing facilities. This is in line with Google’s thinking, where they pushed for hotter data centers, claiming that servers will run normally at temperatures which are higher than 80 degrees.
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