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Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#241

Post by luxurycommunism »

There is little to no doubt that the big data centers of the 22nd century will be in space. The less oxygen, the lower the failure rate. I am curious how many experiments have been done with running computers around different elements. I know the cooling scene is obsessessed with near zero kelvin CPU performance and obviously NASA has to run and test if their tech works in zero gravity vacuum.

>He believes organisations facing a natural disaster or a terrorist attack might find it attractive: "You could effectively move something to a more secure location without having all the huge infrastructure costs of constructing a building. It's flexible and cost effective."

Also like this implication. It's obvious that the DoD would be highly interested in such a thing.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#242

Post by petascale »

StillBored wrote: post #221

In none of the articles do I see the power consumption of the pod.. But it looks packed with a lot of servers, and the surface area is quite minimal given there don't appear to be any cooling fins/etc. So, that many servers are definitely many KW of power, and its all being conducted away via what appears to be a fairly minimal surface area. So the problem probably isn't the exterior so much as the interior which app…

240 kW according to Microsoft: https://natick.research.microsoft.com/

> [They] adapted a heat-exchange process commonly used for cooling submarines to the underwater datacenter. The system pipes seawater directly through the radiators on the back of each of the 12 server racks and back out into the ocean.

https://news.microsoft.com/features/under-the-sea-microsoft-...

So watercooling with seawater, a pump or two, perhaps a heat exchanger (the radiator) is involved. Server to air to pod outer surface would be way too inefficient to keep the servers operating.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#243

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

egberts1 wrote: post #195
YawningAngel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have "nature abhors a vacuum" in English

We have a new phrase, “Gravity abhors a vacuum.”

In a post-Dyson world, many vacuums rely on gravity to work.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#244

Post by entropicdrifter »

HenryBemis wrote: post #208
ehsankia wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they patented it in 2017, I'm guessing it probably didn't make it in to this one, but the assumption is that the next version may have that technology.

That's a good enough reason to pull it out, replace/upgrade the equip, and drop it back in with the new setup (new sources of energy), and if they get the whole thing to transmit wireless-ly with a 1% failures per 2 years (8 out of the 855 servers) then it's a truly set-and-forget thing. And they can be bringing them up every 2-5-10 years to replace/upgrade the HW and drop it back in.

One would imagine that the signal to noise ratio for wireless data transmission in the ocean would be pretty abysmal. That said, there's no reason why they couldn't just run a fiber optic cable out from it, as long as it's designed to rotate around said cable.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#245

Post by crazygringo »

geophertz wrote: post #237

The thing is that if putting data centers underwater solves the cooling problem, all the heat produced is wasted, so it this really a good solution?

Heat is awfully hard to transfer in the first place, especially when it's not even that hot. It's handy if you can put your data center underneath a swimming pool, for example. But I'm not aware of any large-scale heat recovery projects from data centers. Data centers generally spend extra energy to remove the heat...

But honestly who cares if your power comes from renewables in the first place -- solar and wind? It doesn't seem right to even frame it as "wasting" heat in the first place, anymore than the sun's heat was being "wasted" warming up the ocean in the first place.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#246

Post by abhinuvpitale »

znpy wrote: post #7

Interestingly in the original article it said that the datacenter was meant to stay under water for five years. I wonder why they have pulled it out ahead of time. (source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44368813 -- see video) edit: just to be clear, my questioning isn't meant to be read in a denigratory way. just wondering. Also thank to Kydlaw for pointing out that it actually said "up to five years".

I think their phase 2 is going to be the five year project. This one was supposed to be a POC.

Based off https://natick.research.microsoft.com/

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#248

Post by jacquesm »

WJW wrote: post #199
nexuist wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think jacquesm is off the mark in asking these questions, especially: > what is the direct ecological impact of doing this at scale What is the impact on sea creatures if we put these giant heated cylinders in their territory? Is there any impact? I really doubt we have the answers yet. > at scale ...also implies that there will be more than one. So if one heat cylinder doesn't do anything, what about 10? 100…

It's not a poor question, but the phrasing implies that the ones constructing this test datacenter have not thought about this. Given that the engineers in question have spent many months designing and constructing this device, it's extremely unlikely that some random commentor on HN (even one with interests as varied as Jacques) is going to have questions that have not come up yet. Asking the questions here on HN in…

I don't go around chasing the scientists that have put this together because they likely have better things to do with their time.

I have no assumptions either way, and if they do happen to frequent HN the chances are actually better to get such questions answered here than anywhere else.

Karma grab? FWIW I offered to hand back in all my karma points because they are utterly meaningless but Dang wouldn't have it so please spare me the nonsense accusations.

HN was still free to write to, contribute and ask questions of last I checked, I don't need you - nor anybody else - to tell me what I can or can not do here, nor do I need you to try to put me in a negative light for trying to understand something better.

FWIW humanity has an extremely well developed skill called problem solving. We can do just about anything in the laboratory. But when scaling up those laboratory experiments we often find out that what we thought was a neg positive ends up being a net negative. Before we sink a few 10's of thousands of data centers onto the continental shelf I'd like to know the ecological impact, even if that has already been studied (which I'm actually not aware of).

See also: plastic, freon, lead (in gasoline) and a whole raft of other things that seemed like a great idea at the time but for which we did not have the long term predictions when they mattered most: at the beginning, mostly because people did not ask the right questions.

Scientists in the beginning of the previous century: "Plastics, they last for ever! yay!" and a hundred years later "Plastics, they last for ever! Oops!".

Anyway, the steady stream of quality answers in this thread proves you more wrong than I ever will but this comment reflects poorly on HN, me, and ultimately, on you.

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#249

Post by remarkEon »

maxerickson wrote: post #239
msandford wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems kind of strange to put the whole thing underwater if they're going to pump seawater through internal heat exchangers. At that point there's not a lot of difference between putting the "submarine" underwater and leaving it out of -- but near to -- the water and pumping seawater through the same exchangers. With the added benefit of people being able to access things if something goes wrong.

Their public statements so far indicate that, on the prototype, essentially nothing went wrong in a couple of years (a small number of board failures). On the seafloor, they get constant low temperature water with ~0 external pipe and no head to pump against, so it might not obviously be better to have access.

What’s different about the hardware that they’re seeing failure rates that low?

Re: Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

#250

Post by jacquesm »

StavrosK wrote: post #235
jacquesm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's faulty. Solar installations change the albedo of the planet. That's not a problem if the fraction is a very small one and it is spread out. But if it is concentrated or relatively large it certainly could have an effect.

Isn't increasing the albedo cooling the planet down?

Yes, an increase in reflectivity would cool the planet down. But solar panels actually absorb a lot more than they reflect (they would have to). The ideal solar panel would be utterly black.
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