Computing Diversity Paradigm for the Utilization of Unused Telephony and Marine Infrastructure

Abstract

Computing systems play a significant role in data storage and processing. They enable the execution of data processing in data intensive domains such as astronomy. Therefore, having access to computing platforms is important for capital constrained astronomy organizations (CCAOs). The CCAOs need computing facilities to process the data acquired from an increasing number of telescopes. It is important to ensure that CCAOs execute the required computing at low cost. The research proposes the astronomy computing diversity paradigm to address this challenge for the CCAO. The proposed astronomy computing diversity paradigm uses disaggregated servers to design Class A and Class B data centres. The low–cost computing is realized by reducing computing platform operational costs. In the proposed solution, the Class A data centre uses unutilized telephony infrastructure intended for telephony. The Class B data centre is hosted in aquaria arrays. The Class B data centre reduces the cooling costs by using water in big aquaria. The performance evaluation is done focusing on the power usage effectiveness (PUE) and the angular resolution. Results show that using the aquaria-based data centre enhances the PUE and angular resolution by 22.3% and 40.4% on average, respectively. It reduces the operational costs by 79% on average.