As we’ve written about previously, data center architectures are evolving to meet the demands and complexities imposed by increasing business requirements.  Due to ever-increasing amounts of data storage and computing power, data centers are popping up in the most unlikely of places, including a retrofitted nuclear bunker, a cavern buried within the mountains of Norway, an old gas tower, and more.

So what do some of these futuristic data center designs look like?  We’ve scoured the internet for examples of future projections and come up with everything from sci-fi-inspired facilities to sustainable architecture.  Here’s a closer look at our image gallery:

Data Centers of the Future

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Microsoft predicts the data center of the future will include the following key elements: 1) Be able to virtualize any world, 2) Be able to easily move workloads from data center to the cloud, 3) Be able to understand that cloud innovation is everywhere, 4) Be able to provide smart storage tiering both in an on-premises scenario and in the cloud, and 5) Be able to do dynamic application delivery that provides a consistent experience across clouds and with Windows Azure.

According to a recent GCN article, government agencies and municipalities are turning to “converged infrastructure” technology to consolidate and unify data centers and to build private clouds.  This also makes migrating to new technology easier.

As the data center environment evolves as an eco-system, future predictions include further evolution of the NOC, solutions like DCIM to maximize efficiency, data center consolidation, and automation of all major resources (servers, storage, etc.).

Science Fiction Meets Data Center Reality

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The above data center, originally a nuclear bunker in central Stockholm during the Cold War era, now houses servers for Swedish ISP Bahnhof.  While it’s been in existence since a redesign that took place in 2007 – 2008, the data center represents a futuristic design inspired by old science fiction movies, claims Jon Karlung, CEO of Modular Data Centers (MDC) Stockholm.

Karlung’s company was formed to provide pre-fabricated modules to deploy IT capacity.  The above illustration of the MDC Stockholm modular data center design features three double-stacked 40-foot modules connected to a central inflatable vestibule that connects them.  “We focus on a future that is inspired by an outpost on Mars: durable, reliable, secure, self-sustaining, power-efficient, scalable – and modular,” says Karlung.

The goal of the first modular data center deployed by Bahnof is “to make it look like a space station,” according to Karlung.  Features of the data center located in Kista, Sweden include a spacious double-wide module built with bullet-proof steel that house servers and an attached, inflatable dome that houses security staff.

Bahnof is also planning to convert the former Stockholm Gasometer, built in 1893, into a five-story data center housing thousands of servers.  A Wired article about the project reports that “instead of cooling down the heat from all of those servers, Bahnhof plans to transfer it into hot water and sell the energy to Stockholm, where it will power the city’s centralized heating system.”

Data Centers of the Future “Go Green”

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Designed by sustainable architecture and engineering firm Arup Associates, the above facility located in Frankfurt, Germany became the first data center in the world to achieve LEED Platinum certification.  The 230,000-square-foot facility’s efficient use of energy and resource-conserving design indicate the future of the data center may be “going green.”

Buried deep underneath the mountains near Stavanger, Norway, the Green Mountain Data Center is powered by renewable energy from nearby sources and cooled with water from the adjacent fjord.  By tapping into the eight-degree Celsius water from the fjord, the data center is able to dramatically reduce its cooling costs and thereby maximize its energy efficiency.

The above photo showcases an aerial view of one of Apple’s two major solar panel arrays in Maiden, North Carolina, which supply electricity to help support the power requirements for a nearby Apple data center.  Due to mounting pressure from Greenpeace, Apple announced in March 2013 that it had achieved 100% renewable energy at all of its data centers, including facilities in North Carolina, Oregon, California, and Nevada.

Stockholm’s Interxion data center uses water from the Baltic Sea to cool its servers, saving the company $1 million a year in energy costs.  The company pumps the seawater through several of its data centers, reusing the cool water several times to effectively bring temperatures down from overheated servers and IT equipment.

What’s missing from our image gallery of futuristic data center designs?  What would you add to yours?  We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section below.