Ho John Lee’s Weblog

Following up on yesterday’s post on biotech/genomics/proteinomics, here’s an overview of a current state-of-the-art data center at the Human Genome Project. (Via Slashdot)

Computers:

• Today: The datacenter hosts about 2,000 Alpha processors, originally designed by Digital Equipment (DEC), before its acquisition by Compaq, and later by Hewlett-Packard (HP).
• Tomorrow: The Sanger Institute is looking at cheaper solutions, especially now that HP has officially stopped any development on the Alpha front.

Storage

• Today: Three different computer rooms have a total capacity of about 300 terabytes.
• Tomorrow: The IT management forecasts about a petabyte within three years — at least.

Databases

• Today: There are about 40 different databases, and only two of them are in the 50 terabytes area.
• Tomorrow: One of the databases, the Trace sequence archive currently contains about 700 million entries, and it doubles every 10 months.

Power bills

• Today: The current equipment needs about 0.75 megawatts for a cost of €140,000 per year (about $170K).
• Tomorrow: The new setup will need about 1.4 megawatts, which will raise the yearly bill to about €500,000 (about $615K today).

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