Need an energy efficient data center? Then you should build it under water.

When Sean James, a data center development specialist from Microsoft, suggested to colleagues the idea of ​​creating a data center under water, he was considered to be almost crazy. But he did not abandon his idea, but began to gradually develop. Over time, he appeared like-minded people. About a year after the appearance of the idea, a prototype of a small data center was developed, ready to be placed at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.



This is a project called Project Natick. We have already written about it, but now more detailed information has appeared with some technical details. According to the authors of the idea, the main advantages of this type of data center are the reduction of energy costs for cooling equipment, as well as the possibility of placing data centers closer to users, which will reduce the processing time of requests. Microsoft estimates that about 50% of the world's population lives about 100 km from the coast. Another advantage is modularity.



Plus, the company believes that the construction of such data centers will require fewer permits from regulators.

')

What does this look like?

According to the plan, Project Natick's underwater data center will be a system of individual steel cylinders, each of which houses typical server hardware. The data center will consist of a large number of such cylinders. Underwater data center can accommodate several thousand servers. Data centers will be located near the coast at a depth of 50 to 200 meters. Steel cylinders can both float (for this purpose, a special system of balancers is created) or be attached to the bottom of the sea or ocean.



All cylinders will be under water, they will be lifted to the surface only in two cases. If you need to replace the servers that are in them or the market conditions change and the data center will decide to move. Manage the data center will have to be extremely remote, without the ability to fix any technical problem or replace the failed hardware element.



The modular structure of such servers makes their production easier than creating equipment for regular data centers. Microsoft will have a special industrial facility, where elements of underwater data centers will be produced on a turnkey basis. There will always be several ready-made steel cylinders in stock, fully equipped and ready to be shipped to anywhere in the world. No modification of the equipment is required, everything conforms to a single standard. This will allow building a data center in 90 days instead of the usual few years. We are talking about 90 days from the moment of specifying the deployment of a data center from management to the moment of putting the entire system into operation.







The height of the cylinders is about 3 meters, diameter - 2 meters. These cylinders are completely sealed. Containers, it was decided to make a cylindrical shape in order for them to better hold the pressure at depth. Of course, even at low ambient temperatures, the equipment inside is heated. So, the cooling system is liquid. Inside - heat exchangers that convert heat from air to liquid.



Microsoft representatives said that if the data center is large, you may have to use liquid dielectrics or helium under high pressure. In this case, the cylinders need to be covered with some material that will prevent their fouling with biomass (shells, algae), etc., which may interfere with effective cooling.







For example, the capsule, which was tested earlier, in the very first day after the dive became the center of attention for the marine living creatures - crabs and other animals. At the same time, it turned out that the cooling system developed for underwater data centers works quite efficiently (at a water temperature of 10-18 degrees Celsius).







As for the supply of energy to the data center, in the future the company is counting on renewable sources. This is wind, tidal energy, waves and currents. The network is connected from the shore using fiber optic cable.



The operating time of the system is about 5 years. After the completion of this period, a special team will arrive at the place, which will either replace the outdated equipment or take the DC for processing. In general, there are 4 possible equipment renewal cycles, which will allow the underwater data center to work up to 20 years.