Typical sizes being built at the moment in UK are 900 odd square m (10,000 sq. ft) at a power density up to 2000W per square m. That's a lot of juice. Taking account of the standby/UPS capacity, these are serious numbers. Bigger units than this are hard to imagine, and the disaster scenario (eg plane crash) doesn't bear thinking about. Just build more of them - spread the load.

Actually, and remember that you heard IT Registered here first, the next major shift in computing will be a Paradigm shift into Virtualised Satellites for Global Command and Control of ITServering...... which would be right up Sun's street of the Network is the Computer and therefore InterNetworking ITs Raison dD'etre.

More anon ..... after this pregnant pause allowing EADS Astrium to ponder today's earlier, early bird Alien Contact.

NASA/NSA .... you had your chance and you blew IT? Now Wwwe'll Fix IT 4U2 with an ElevAItion of Privileges into the MetaPhysical Realms of Remote Control of Quantum Systems.

[You do realise that question is an Invitation, I trust. If you didn't or don't, now you most surely do.]

[And for NEUKlearer hardened El Reg readers (Post Modern Virtual Deadheads), an Orbital Platform for Future Innovative XXXXChanges in ESPecial Applied Semantic Programming from Schhh...UNO WHO. Or are you more Content in Denial?]

Hmmm. 50Mwatt data centres. You could provide district heating to a fair sized town from the waste heat.

So where is the energy to come from? Power consumption like this is a serious problem in a world where global warming is supposed to be being treated as the biggest threat to humanity.

But obviously, flooding Bangla Desh and N'Orleans is unimportant as long as Google can search faster and you get HD TV downloads in time to watch the end of the world.

Should the Google Ethics committee looks into all this?

So, build the data centre in some very cold place (Alaska, Iceland, Moscow etc.) underground, then build a shopping centre / tower block / business park / several housing estates on top of it.

And make money out of the waste heat as well.

AC,

Are the only worries imaginary? ...... http://cryptogon.com/ .... and being pushed to maintain a monetary/capitalist power base?

After all, the thinking is that without cash you can do very little, is it not? Some would have you believe that without it, you can do nothing, which is a very subversive, artificially created control....... with everyone born/borne into its slavery and/or perverse addiction.

How very convenient whenever you can print your own and have everyone believe it is absolutely necessary. The danger is, of course, that the ruse be rumbled for then the great unwashed will be wondering why they are not given what they need if it is as simple as printing paper, as it is. Which is what is unravelling before our very eyes in the sub-prime, credit crunching markets at the moment. The wheels have come of the wagon and the vessel is sinking to the bottom.

And the proof of the pudding? Well, nobody really is being greatly effected by the billions in losses*, are they, with some of the key executives sitting in charge at the top, moving on/stepping down/being retired with mega million bonuses. A little too embarrassing to have them still retain their position after having been so successful in shifting all that toxic waste onto unsuspecting friends....... http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/united_states/article3007121.ece

The billions being "lost" are not actually real, are they, for have you ever met anyone who loses money? That therefore means that it is a virtual game being played very badly now, with the losers being those who think that money, or more accurately the constant lack of it, can control the masses rather than the never ending supply of it for our every wish so that our every wish can be granted and delivered with a New World Order System of Plentiful Supply.

It is not as if it is difficult to do only that the thought of all of those years of fat cat control and excess at the expense of everyone else may be a cross they have to bear in front of the crowd. And to deny it being so, is to have it further exposed as being exactly so.

Sitting in an Ivory Tower, Life is a Game...... but only when you play it well. The Present System does it worse than badly?

It is as well to suggest that the FiXXXX is being discussed at the highest of every level, for with Instant Global Communications are such messages instantly available and are obviously going to grow in number and frequency. So don't shoot the Messenger, whenever the problem lies with the recipient who would choose to ignore the message shared for fundamental action/Paradigm Change.

Who wants to be a billionaire?

Ok, rant over, move on, nothing to see here? Normal Service will be resumed as soon as possible. :-)

* Not greatly affected? Well, all those who can least afford it, are again being threatened with even more sacrifices/scaremongering/interest rate changes/tightening of belts to perpetuate the myth. Definitely a very perverse and callous System in Dire Straits need of a Radical Change.

"Sun Microsystems loves to think ten years ahead of the market".... Yeah, right, they did such a good job of predicting that whole dotcom bubble bursting thing back in 2000/2001! Sun's massive overexposure in not just telecoms but everywhere else made it the biggest loser when the bubble burst, the vendor with the largest drop in share price (to the point where people were begging FSC to buy the wreckage), and the one that looked the least agile compared to IBM, HP, Dell and EMC, whom all did much better jobs.

"At long last, Sun has revamped its entire server product line and looks to have some compelling future gear on the way...." Finally, we get the real message - Sun has ditched most of the old proprietary junk that was holding it back and now has some stuff on the horizon it desperately needs to be successful, so they're thrashing around with this RedShift idea because the Niagara massively-multi-threaded pony is not looking such a smart bet with Intel and AMD both spewing out multi-cored chips with much wider market acceptance.

TBH, why don't Sun just ditch the hardware bizz and go on as a software company? Such an approach would remove any conflict with the other main hardware vendors and allow them to make Slowaris for any platform without the SPARC boyos holding them back. FSC might even be tempted to take the SPARC teams off their hands.

Crosslink to that "IT departments poised to fly past airlines on CO2 emissions" story would look nice here.

Coming from the company that brought Java, they must know som'th'! When you need at least 8 times more CPU to run the Java version of the "old" C++ app.

I don't have any metrics but 8 times more developers is not unlikely and 8 times more coffee breaks whilst deploying using "fishbowl" is fair.

That explains the 10 fold increase. I'm happy with SunOS & Sun Fires though.

If they actually did some UK television advertising, like IBM do, people might stop thinking of them as high-end, propietary 'mainframe' kit suppliers and realise that they have some very cool (literally), low-cost volume kit. I speak with a lot of end-users about Sun, and the above very much reflects the perception. They don't need to out-innovate the competition, they just need to get the message out and get selling!