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Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

bbc.co.uk

331–340 of 386 posts

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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heat produced in a traditional data center is already unwanted and wasted and takes a ton of electricity and machinery to get rid of. Given that processors like to operate around 50 C, that's not a lot of heat to preserve and transport and do something useful with.

Maybe design electronics that are happy at higher temperatures?

The issue is more that transistors will always generate some heat- making the threshold higher / being more efficient doesn't solve the fact that there's still some waste thermal energy that needs to be removed.

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

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought of the cable solution, but that would have some wear and tear if the capsule gets to move around. I was imagining a periscope-y antenna, in the form of a buoy.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, marine life is not going to give a damn about warm tubes. There's plenty of natural heat sources in the ocean way more extreme than that. As for the noise, that can have a negative impact, but it's going to be nothing compared to the noise ships are making: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/20/891854646/whales-get-a-break-... Whether it's high-pitched or low-pitched noise also makes a huge difference underwater.

Isn’t one of the environmentalist complaints against nuclear is they heat up the water near shore, which changes the ecology? One of these might not be a big deal, but a thousand? Worth questioning.

>Isn’t one of the environmentalist complaints against nuclear is they heat up the water near shore, which changes the ecology?

This is a valid point for small streams, whose ecology can't adapt when the temperature changes mid-stream.

For oceans the picture is a bit different though.

Suppose we're looking at a cubic kilometer of seawater that has a temperature of 10C. The entire output of a nuclear power plant (single unit, about 1200MW) would heat that water by less than a single degree in a month.

The average power consumption (and thus roughly heat generated) of a single server rack is somewhere around 12KW, so you can power about 100.000 of these for that. Microsoft's submarine had only 12 racks. From this one could conclude that even the localized effects are likely to be minimal.

Now for perspective: the entire ocean has a water volume of roughly 1.35 billion cubic kilometers. Next to major energy sources like the sun, and even smaller ones like hydrothermal vents and streams of warmer water entering it, your puny server submarine is not going to be noticed. With a nuclear power plant worth of energy you're heating the whole body for just about 1/100.000.000th of a degree per year, assuming the heat wouldn't dissipate out of the water at some point.

And really, if you're running your servers outside the water, the heat would dissipate into the ocean at some point too, making it a moot point in the grander scheme of things.

So the only area of interest concerning marine life is about 5 meters in every direction from your server tube. I'm willing to bet it'll have way less of an impact than a warm freshwater river discharging into the ocean.

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

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, marine life is not going to give a damn about warm tubes. There's plenty of natural heat sources in the ocean way more extreme than that. As for the noise, that can have a negative impact, but it's going to be nothing compared to the noise ships are making: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/20/891854646/whales-get-a-break-... Whether it's high-pitched or low-pitched noise also makes a huge difference underwater.

They sunk it half a mile offshore and 117 feet deep. Hardly the abyssal zone. Other than hydrothermal vents, what natural heat sources are you thinking of? (and yes, it's a damn shame the oceans are so noisy due to ships and sonar...and you're prob right about heat not being harmful, I'm just curious what you're referring to)

> Other than hydrothermal vents, what natural heat sources are you thinking of?

Mostly the sun, but also warm freshwater rivers (one of the biggest temperature differentials you'll find excluding hydrothermal vents). Areas with a lot of organic material (algae etc.) close to the shore can also get very warm compared to the temperature average. Though I'm not sure about the cause/effect for the latter.

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

#336
post #289
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are towns in Denmark getting heat from Google and Facebook datacenters so I don't see why it shouldn't work elsewhere. The way MS does it here the heat is 100% waste and should be taxed like other waste. Not to mention what about the noise? The sea is already noise polluted. Here's a source (in Danish). Wind energy in -> 25 MW/h of heat out (to heat up 12.000 houses): https://www.computerworld.dk/art/252732/fac…

You want to tax unused heat? Are you serious?

If entropy continues to be an issue taxation and regulations are sensible solutions.

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

#337
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Those barnacles and algae act as an insulator Maybe not. Barnacles probably conduct heat at a similar rate to water. And they create a rougher surface with greater contact area to the surrounding water. And some of them actively filter water, push it around. Perhaps having a layer of barnacles woudl increase cooling.

The cooling nature of water comes from the high specific heat _and_ the fluid mixing (convection currents, pumped flow, etc). Barnacles and other accretive life forms means that the thermal gradient drops sharply, and hence the heat flow rate drops significantly. Take a comparison is between (say) 25C heatsink in contact with 10C water across a boundary layer that likely on the order of 10mm thick, versus what is eff…

This is probably one of the reason they pulled it before the 5 years they are planning. The ambient temperature have increased to a level they think it will cause more server failure.

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

#338
They are only discussing about how they can make it more efficient. As far as I understand one kind of cost cutting they are aiming is energy and money required in "Cooling" systems, ya I read about less failure cases too. But putting a heat generating device under water will have adverse effect on underwater ecosystem surrounding it.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This: "there were no humans on board" Made me think of this: "The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment."

Is there more to that quote that makes it make sense? Otherwise both the human and the dog are redundant as a pair as their purposes are circular and don't benefit the factory.

Every day, a user on HN strays further into social oblivion

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

#340

They are only discussing about how they can make it more efficient. As far as I understand one kind of cost cutting they are aiming is energy and money required in "Cooling" systems, ya I read about less failure cases too. But putting a heat generating device under water will have adverse effect on underwater ecosystem surrounding it.

The same is true of land based operations ha IMG environmental impact, there is a whole lot more sea than land.
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