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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

#361

Post by zaarn »

WalterBright wrote: post #309
da_chicken wrote: post #266

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?

Modern transistors are rather small and would desintegrate at too high temperatures. Not much you can do about it at those scales, any material will decompose.

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

#362

Post by Already__Taken »

imglorp wrote: post #360
tyingq wrote: post #307

"The team is speculating that the greater reliability may be connected to the fact that there were no humans on board, and that nitrogen rather than oxygen was pumped into the capsule." That does sound plausible. But I do wonder how much might have been due to extra care. If I were the sysadmin on the project, I probably would have spent extra time on component selection, cable seating, burn-in testing, etc. Lots of…

Nobody's mentioning tin whiskers as a failure mode. Maybe the anaerobic atmosphere slows their growth? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_%28metallurgy%29

even treat wiki mentions conformal coatings can stop it. it's it long solved at manufacture?

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

#363

Post by salawat »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #319
perl4ever wrote: post #315

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.

I heard it originally in reference to planes getting automated. The idea is that nobody would be comfortable riding a pilotless plane, so the pilot is hired on to assuage people's fears, but assigned a dog to keep him from messing with the automation.

I assume the same dynamic is at play, but I find the entire thing to be riddled with hubris, and projective of industry for industry sake.

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

#364

Post by tyingq »

13of40 wrote: post #320
tyingq wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sun Microsystems had some Sparc servers where the on die cache didn't have ECC. And, cosmic rays created issues: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19095-01/sf4810.srvr/816-5053-10...

I've always wondered whether the orientation of the memory chips in your computer made a difference for cosmic ray errors. That is to say, if their face is to the sky vs. their edge, will it affect the error rate?

Not sure how you would do the math there. Edge up would maybe be a smaller target, but hits would pass through more silicon.

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

#365

Post by DavidD »

SoylentOrange wrote: post #314
tyingq wrote: post #307

"The team is speculating that the greater reliability may be connected to the fact that there were no humans on board, and that nitrogen rather than oxygen was pumped into the capsule." That does sound plausible. But I do wonder how much might have been due to extra care. If I were the sysadmin on the project, I probably would have spent extra time on component selection, cable seating, burn-in testing, etc. Lots of…

A friend of mine wrote a paper on the effects of cosmic rays on memory errors in data centers a few years ago[1]. He also posited they had effects on hard drive reliability. The first thing I thought of when reading this article is whether the increased shielding from the water reduced the impact of cosmic rays on the hardware. [1]: https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~bianca/papers/ASPLOS2012.pdf

I think there is something to this I used to have a radio that would pickup this type of interference and days when it was heavy I would have more than usual amount hardware failures even powersupplies.

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

#366

Post by flingo »

13of40 wrote: post #320
tyingq wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sun Microsystems had some Sparc servers where the on die cache didn't have ECC. And, cosmic rays created issues: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19095-01/sf4810.srvr/816-5053-10...

I've always wondered whether the orientation of the memory chips in your computer made a difference for cosmic ray errors. That is to say, if their face is to the sky vs. their edge, will it affect the error rate?

Cosmic rays can come from any angle, and even pass through the entire earth without impacting anything. (millions of them are zipping through you and your RAM, right now! electrons barely dodging out of the way in time.)

I think (but have no reference) that the amount of cosmic rays the planet blocks by being in the way is dwarfed by the effects of the magnetosphere and solar rays.

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

#367

Post by sandworm101 »

sangnoir wrote: post #261
sandworm101 wrote: post #211

Nobody talking about the potential military applications of a hardened processing infrastructure underwater? Once upon a time Russia toyed with the idea of putting ICBM silos at the bottom of lakes. Say you wanted to run a network of hydrophones on the seafloor. You might want to do the data processing in-situ rather than transmit everything back to shore. If I were microsoft I might be interested in those potential…

> Once upon a time Russia toyed with the idea of putting ICBM silos at the bottom of lakes Was this before or after nuclear submarines were a thing? I think maintenance is much easier with a submersible than something affixed to a lakebed.

During SSBN development. The test rigs for submarine missile are essentially floating barges that are sunk beneath the water for testing. So someone though, why not just have the barge sit on the bottom until needed? It can then float to the surface to launch. That is cheaper than building a concrete silo.

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

#368

Post by raducu »

flingo wrote: post #366
13of40 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered whether the orientation of the memory chips in your computer made a difference for cosmic ray errors. That is to say, if their face is to the sky vs. their edge, will it affect the error rate?

Cosmic rays can come from any angle, and even pass through the entire earth without impacting anything. (millions of them are zipping through you and your RAM, right now! electrons barely dodging out of the way in time.) I think (but have no reference) that the amount of cosmic rays the planet blocks by being in the way is dwarfed by the effects of the magnetosphere and solar rays.

Watching an alcohool fog chamber is such a cool experience.

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

#369

Post by Balgair »

flingo wrote: post #366
13of40 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered whether the orientation of the memory chips in your computer made a difference for cosmic ray errors. That is to say, if their face is to the sky vs. their edge, will it affect the error rate?

Cosmic rays can come from any angle, and even pass through the entire earth without impacting anything. (millions of them are zipping through you and your RAM, right now! electrons barely dodging out of the way in time.) I think (but have no reference) that the amount of cosmic rays the planet blocks by being in the way is dwarfed by the effects of the magnetosphere and solar rays.

Slight nit-pick: Neutrinos are the ones that are zipping through you and the Earth. They interact with things very rarely and have no real charge anyway. The rays you'd worry about with computer hardware are photons (gamma rays) with high energy enough to create new charged particles. Also other charged particles like muons and their decay cascades.

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

#370

Post by Balgair »

13of40 wrote: post #320
tyingq wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sun Microsystems had some Sparc servers where the on die cache didn't have ECC. And, cosmic rays created issues: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19095-01/sf4810.srvr/816-5053-10...

I've always wondered whether the orientation of the memory chips in your computer made a difference for cosmic ray errors. That is to say, if their face is to the sky vs. their edge, will it affect the error rate?

You can try the experiment at home. The equipment is ~$100 : https://hackaday.com/2017/11/27/make-a-cheap-muon-detector-u...

It's also a really good random number generator, for those Hackers/crypto people that would like a true source of randomness.

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