Watch Fish Swim By Petabytes of Data At Microsoft's Underwater Data Center (vice.com) 97
An anonymous reader quotes a report fro Motherboard: In June, Microsoft announced that it had placed a self-sufficient, waterproof data center off the coast of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. The data center, loaded with 864 servers capable of handling 27.6 petabytes of data, represented the culmination of nearly four years of research and development on the project, codenamed Natick. The underwater data center is the first of its kind. It's a proof of concept that aims to cut down on one of the biggest costs of running a data center on land -- cooling -- and can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world. Due to the experimental nature of the project, however, Microsoft needed to keep a close eye on its pilot project. In order to monitor the environmental conditions around the tank, it placed two cameras nearby that livestream from the bottom of the ocean 24/7.
Wear birds at Trillions of micrometers on land (Score:4, Funny)
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I didn't realize there were so many fish in the ocean in that part of the world.
There isn't. This camera is not just randomly placed in the ocean. It is attached to a large object (the data container) that acts as an artificial reef, attracting fish that school around and below it.
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They understandably weren’t concerned about aesthetics when they positioned that camera... yes there are fish in the shot, but it’s unlikely anyone will want to watch it for more than a few seconds.
If you want something more aesthetically pleasing (and relaxing), I recommend the Monterrey Bay Jellyfish Cam: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
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I was able to watch it for almost 30 seconds. You youngsters have no attention span nowadays!
And thx for the link. Definitely an upgrade. You deserve a gratuity, so here...
Q: How does an attorney sleep?
A: First he lies on one side and then on the other.
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A bit off topic, but I was somewhat surprised to learn that cold northern waters actually contain a lot more nutrients for the undersea ecosystem than warmer oceans further south (I think I learned this from Blue Planet?). We think of those ocean regions as life-rich because of the niche areas of coral reefs or shallows, but in the open ocean, it's much less so.
Back on topic, I notice that these are designed for deployment for up to five years without maintenance. I'll be interested to hear if they can hi
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Considering all the metal parts visible in the cam, they're definitely not long-term deployable. They're going to need new anodes even if they don't have any faults.
Cloud hosting only. But, not bad concept for that use.
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Obviously, they'd have to figure out if it makes any economic sense to do this, but it's pretty neat as an experiment.
Especially if they can run one of these hot enough to boil water and create a column of steam in the air in a spot strategically chosen to water a dry area of adjacent land.
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Sea water maintains a constant temperature compared to land. Coastal areas have a more moderate climate than those inland.
The modules seem to be designed from oil industry technology - designed to survive in a salt environment like the North Sea. That will corrode just about any metal. The winter storms with 30m ocean waves won't help either.
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Re: Wear birds at Trillions of micrometers on land (Score:1)
Don't feed the trolls.
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But fruit flies like a banana.
And We still don't havea true waterproof smartfone (Score:1)
The last I checked most phones would fail and lose water-proofing if they start ringing underwater. Or their touch sensor won't work, or some sort of handicap like that.
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People who use boats often for work or pleasure often find they have dropped their phone in water. They drop it into shallows, which is usually the case as they drop phones accidentally when climbing / alighting the boats. In such scenarios, it is easy to retrieve the phone, but it would just be a brick by the time it is retrieved. The possibility of communication is vital in such circumstances where they might be traveling over water, possibly alone.What is the point of spending thousands of dollars on com
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Good point. But somehow they have not caught on.. Yet .. think about it .. the computing and the technologies packed into mobile communications have been growing at a phenomenal rate. But proper waterproofing is still a "high premium" and still questionable if it truly works! We definitely have been prioritizing the wrong stuff. That is the point I want to stress.
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Using cases would get annoying. Really.
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Also, if they can make a datacenter waterproof, why not a humble mobile phone?
Brings new meaning to... (Score:3)
Re:Brings new meaning to... (Score:4, Funny)
... fish and chips.
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They could cool down even more (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They could cool down even more (Score:5, Informative)
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There's no one to reboot the servers (remote management has its limits), thus it'd be suicidal to run Windows there.
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I am pretty sure they could add a remote power cut off relay to this to power cycle them...
... just to see Windows trying to install updates over and over. Or a STOP 0x8000003 immediately.
Obviously, iDrac will then fail with an expired Java certificate server-side...
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That is what Intel Management Engine is for. It runs separately to the main CPU and OS, so in theory no matter how badly they have crashed it can reboot them and provide VNC style remote screen/keyboard. You can access the BIOS with it etc.
Of course it also makes the machine ridiculously insecure...
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Putting out a fire would be trivial.
I didn't RTFA, but if they already have to seal this thing up to put it underwater, I would think that it would be fairly trivial to do so with no oxygen in it. Why not make the atmosphere inside consist of nitrogen and/or CO2? No fires w/o oxygen.
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Practical question (Score:2)
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They don't, you just install enough spare capacity that you can afford 10 years worth of failures.
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They don't.
Everything sits as it was shipped and the reduced costs make up the difference.
It's even filled with nitrogen to eliminate the possibility of fires.
I'm interested to know what they are running on it. Like are they using it for commercial services? Or are they really just running through endless test cycles on 27PB of storage?
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It's no small sum to loose either, the 27PB alone has to be about 500k as a low estimate.
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How fast can they change a SSD or a memory module down there?
If any part fails, the TOS states that you need to install a new data center.
Everythings fun and games (Score:3)
until an ocean floor trawler rips up rheir power or fiber.
Or sea life (like underwater squirrels) try eating the cables. /s
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If this is for Production use then it certainly has redundant power and fiber connections which take different routes to the shore.
Tautological pleonasm (Score:2)
Isn't "Orkney Islands" like saying "the La Brea tar pits" or "Rio Grande river", given that "ey" means island?
I've always heard them referred to as just the Orkneys.
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That whole region is crammed with Old Norse geographical names like ey, ness, foss, fell, water (from vatn, lake) and byre.
Re:Tautological pleonasm (Score:5, Interesting)
Your attempted pedanticism is false. So lame.
Orkn means seal in Old Norse. Neyjar means islands. So the name Orkney is a corruption of the words "Seal Islands." But it does not literally mean Orkn Islands, as the name isn't Orkneyjar but merely Orkney.
OTOH, the Old Gaelic name was Insi Orc, Island of the Orcs. But Orc in Old Gaelic means pig, as in a wild boar.
It appears actually that the ancient Pictish inhabitants had a Boar as the symbol of their ruling noble family, and the later Norse inhabitants simply took it to mean their own similar-sounding name, Seal, based on the place-names taken out of context. And the later Pictish (eastern Scottish highlander) residents dropped part of the Old Norse word for islands, but didn't go back to Orc from Orkn.
The phrasing "the Orkneys" is similar to that from Pliny, who called them the Orchades. But they were likely still actually called Insi Orc at that time.
Also, when a corrupted word has a suffix particle from a different language than the root, they generally combine to form a new root word, and would need a new suffix. This is not any contradiction, just a reality of the evolution of words.
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Your attempted pedanticism is false. So lame.
Orkn means seal in Old Norse. Neyjar means islands. So the name Orkney is a corruption of the words "Seal Islands." But it does not literally mean Orkn Islands, as the name isn't Orkneyjar but merely Orkney.
Your attempted at being even more pedantic isn't an improvement.
Ey is singular, eyjar is plural. Orkneys is an English plural to a Norse word for island on a gaelic stem. Much like the individual islands with names like Westray, Sanday and Ronaldsay.
The ey still very much part of the word, whether in singular Orkney or plural Orkneys, it means "island".
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You were doing good, but you didn't make it far enough into my analysis to see that I addressed that.
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Boars are nothing. Albania has a two-headed chicken as a symbol. It worked wonders on scaring the foreigners off as no one wanted to be fighting two-headed chickens.
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The emblem of the Kastrioti family, as seen on the flag of Albania, is an eagle. The Scottish side of my family has a Rooster as their crest, with a single head, and I dare say that they were more feared on the battlefield. One were renowned military leaders, hired to help lead armies all across Europe during times of war; the other were not.
Looking at history, nobody was ever scared of attacking Albania. That never happened. The Greeks generally didn't even mention passing through it; the Huns had to fight
Anywhere? (Score:4, Funny)
" and can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world."
Like to the Sahara?
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Have to read the EULA to see the definition of "deploy" used here is all about placement rather than function. It can be placed in the sahara, rapidly.
Nature will surely find a way (Score:2)
To breach this thing. The ocean doesn't like to be warmed.
New fishing spot (Score:1)
That heat will create a micro eco system. It'll attract smaller organisms, which will attract larger, yada yada.
I wonder if Microsoft did an environmental impact study to what happens when they turn it off. There'll be a kill off?
2nd, I'd expect to see it being a fishing spot?
Fucking Genius (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone's worried about the warming of the oceans, so Microsoft puts a giant heater in one!
Yeah, yeah - I know. But there was a day when someone said "a bit of plastic dumped in the ocean's not going to matter, is it?". It's called learning from your mistakes; maybe we should try it some time.
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"Funnily enough, people far better informed than you"
Microsoft.
Just one torpedo will do the job (Score:2)
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Flood it with seawater, and everything electronic inside is toast.
Similarly, most land-based server installations are susceptible to a simple H-bomb attack.
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derp (Score:2)
Underwater cameras (Score:2)
In Scotland. Yeah, right [dailymail.co.uk].
nothing could ... (Score:2)
100% uptime until the cows come home!
wait...cows?
I tried to look (Score:1)
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For me it worked. At least MS can do full screen video on the iPad, unlike Google with their terribly broken YouTube website.
Disposal will be a piece of cake (Score:1)
When it's obsolete, they can just unplug it and walk away. Who's going to notice & do anything about it?