Continuing to conquer the bottom of the sea. Microsoft and its project of Natick 2 submarine data center
How to save on cooling server capacity? The world giant company Microsoft knows firsthand. Back in the late summer of 2015, the company submerged an experimental prototype of a new underwater data center. Thus was born the prototype of the data center codenamed Leona Philpot, according to the Natick project. Servers were placed inside a small container with dimensions of 3 by 2 meters, and management was carried out in remote mode. For 105 days, the mini data center was under water, after the ascent to the land a test analysis was conducted. What can I say, the experiment turned out to be quite successful, there was no equipment malfunction, moreover, high energy efficiency was achieved due to the cooling system. The company decided to continue to actively develop the concept of diving data centers under water. There was an idea to dip the server farm into the underwater kingdom “more” deeper and into “more” cold water. It should be recalled that initially the prototype was immersed 10 meters per kilometer from the US Pacific coast.
A little history of the project under the code name Natick. The Natick project is a research project to create underwater data centers, whose goal is to explore the full potential and benefits of such a non-standard approach. The first phase of the project was completed in November 2015, the prototype of the data center was submerged one kilometer off the Pacific coast of the United States. In 2018, the second stage of the Natick project came, and now the company's goal is to demonstrate how to deploy a full-fledged underwater data center in just 90 days from the decision to build it. Arena was selected waters of the North Sea near the Orkney Islands, an archipelago in the north-east of Scotland.
The Natick project clearly demonstrates Microsoft's policy aimed at finding the best solutions for cloud data centers: deployment speed, low cost, high level of flexibility, all to meet customer needs.
Quick preparation and deployment : the ability to deploy the entire data center deployment process in a time frame of not more than 90 days.
Reduction of latency , tobish the time required to transfer data from source to destination. Half of the world's population lives 200 km from the seas / oceans, so the placement of data centers in marine waters physically brings the data center closer to the population, ultimately providing better connectivity. The signal transmission speed in the network is about 200 km per millisecond, it is not difficult to calculate such a task - if it is 2 ms to be at a distance of 200 km from the data center, and if it is 40 km to the distance of 4000 km. In short, gamers will appreciate the Natick project.
Sustainability : the company aims to create an environmentally friendly data center that will use local green energy. Natick data centers are zero-emission data centers: no waste is released into the environment. Water is used for cooling capacities. All this creates ideal conditions for the deployment of "long-playing" up to 10 years, environmentally friendly, reliable data centers.
The first stage of the project was proof that the creation of an underwater data center is a promising business. The ability to remotely control submarine data centers for long periods of time, work with highly efficient PUE 1.07, WUE (water use ratio) is 0, while ground data centers consume up to 4.8 liters of water per kilowatt-hour.
What to expect from the second phase of the project. The company's goal is to develop one full-scale prototype of an underwater data center that can be used as a base for modular data center construction. Check the effectiveness of the prototype in coastal waters, plunging it to a depth of more than 100 meters, test the equipment for 5 years. All this will be tested, if necessary refined, improved.
The new prototype of the data center is equivalent to the standard 40-foot ISO-container, it has 12 racks with 864 servers. On board such a container, you can accommodate 27.6 PB of data (27 600 TB). The data center was assembled and tested in France, sent along with the platform to Scotland.
It was a great idea to submerge a computer under water. We will continue to observe the global giant and its innovations.
Thank you for staying with us. Do you like our articles? Want to see more interesting materials? Support us by placing an order or recommending to friends, 30% discount for Habr users on a unique analogue of the entry-level servers that we invented for you: The whole truth about VPS (KVM) E5-2650 v4 (6 Cores) 10GB DDR4 240GB SSD 1Gbps from $ 20 or how to share the server? (Options are available with RAID1 and RAID10, up to 24 cores and up to 40GB DDR4).
Dell R730xd 2 times cheaper? Only we have 2 x Intel Dodeca-Core Xeon E5-2650v4 128GB DDR4 6x480GB SSD 1Gbps 100 TV from $ 249 in the Netherlands and the USA! Read about How to build an infrastructure building. class c using servers Dell R730xd E5-2650 v4 worth 9000 euros for a penny?
A little history of the project under the code name Natick. The Natick project is a research project to create underwater data centers, whose goal is to explore the full potential and benefits of such a non-standard approach. The first phase of the project was completed in November 2015, the prototype of the data center was submerged one kilometer off the Pacific coast of the United States. In 2018, the second stage of the Natick project came, and now the company's goal is to demonstrate how to deploy a full-fledged underwater data center in just 90 days from the decision to build it. Arena was selected waters of the North Sea near the Orkney Islands, an archipelago in the north-east of Scotland.
The Natick project clearly demonstrates Microsoft's policy aimed at finding the best solutions for cloud data centers: deployment speed, low cost, high level of flexibility, all to meet customer needs.
What is attractive such a data center
Quick preparation and deployment : the ability to deploy the entire data center deployment process in a time frame of not more than 90 days.
Reduction of latency , tobish the time required to transfer data from source to destination. Half of the world's population lives 200 km from the seas / oceans, so the placement of data centers in marine waters physically brings the data center closer to the population, ultimately providing better connectivity. The signal transmission speed in the network is about 200 km per millisecond, it is not difficult to calculate such a task - if it is 2 ms to be at a distance of 200 km from the data center, and if it is 40 km to the distance of 4000 km. In short, gamers will appreciate the Natick project.
Sustainability : the company aims to create an environmentally friendly data center that will use local green energy. Natick data centers are zero-emission data centers: no waste is released into the environment. Water is used for cooling capacities. All this creates ideal conditions for the deployment of "long-playing" up to 10 years, environmentally friendly, reliable data centers.
The first stage of the project was proof that the creation of an underwater data center is a promising business. The ability to remotely control submarine data centers for long periods of time, work with highly efficient PUE 1.07, WUE (water use ratio) is 0, while ground data centers consume up to 4.8 liters of water per kilowatt-hour.
What to expect from the second phase of the project. The company's goal is to develop one full-scale prototype of an underwater data center that can be used as a base for modular data center construction. Check the effectiveness of the prototype in coastal waters, plunging it to a depth of more than 100 meters, test the equipment for 5 years. All this will be tested, if necessary refined, improved.
The new prototype of the data center is equivalent to the standard 40-foot ISO-container, it has 12 racks with 864 servers. On board such a container, you can accommodate 27.6 PB of data (27 600 TB). The data center was assembled and tested in France, sent along with the platform to Scotland.
Facts and figures
- Destination - "Northern Islands"
- Dimensions - length 12.2 m, diameter 2.8 m (3.18 m, including external components); 40ft ISO container
- Power supply - 100% renewable wind and sun energy from a local tidal power station
- Power consumption is 240 kW.
- 12 racks with 864 servers, enough storage for about 5 million movies
- Location - European Maritime Energy Center (EMEC), Scotland, UK
- Duration of continuous work (without physical service) - up to 5 years
It was a great idea to submerge a computer under water. We will continue to observe the global giant and its innovations.
Thank you for staying with us. Do you like our articles? Want to see more interesting materials? Support us by placing an order or recommending to friends, 30% discount for Habr users on a unique analogue of the entry-level servers that we invented for you: The whole truth about VPS (KVM) E5-2650 v4 (6 Cores) 10GB DDR4 240GB SSD 1Gbps from $ 20 or how to share the server? (Options are available with RAID1 and RAID10, up to 24 cores and up to 40GB DDR4).
Dell R730xd 2 times cheaper? Only we have 2 x Intel Dodeca-Core Xeon E5-2650v4 128GB DDR4 6x480GB SSD 1Gbps 100 TV from $ 249 in the Netherlands and the USA! Read about How to build an infrastructure building. class c using servers Dell R730xd E5-2650 v4 worth 9000 euros for a penny?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/413593/
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