Microsoft declares its underwater data center test was a success

Underwater pods can reduce latency by moving cloud services closer to customers.

Read the whole story

 

[Wickwick]

you also gain security benefits (nobody around to try and break in)

That is not going to be a forever thing—and I, for one, was already excited for future movies featuring SCUBA-enabled underwater physical pentests while I was writing the article.

I mean. There could legitimately be GUARD SHARKS. With frickin' lasers! (Okay, maybe not so much the lasers. And dolphins would probably be a better choice, or maybe sealions. And... and... and I still wanna see that movie.)

Given the history of both the US and Russia tapping underwater cables, I'd say the USS Jimmy Carter can expect a new addition to the MMP and a new body courtesy of the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit in the near future.

It's a lot easier to sneak into these servers through their data connections than to need physical access.

 

[Wickwick]

you also gain security benefits (nobody around to try and break in)

That is not going to be a forever thing—and I, for one, was already excited for future movies featuring SCUBA-enabled underwater physical pentests while I was writing the article.

I mean. There could legitimately be GUARD SHARKS. With frickin' lasers! (Okay, maybe not so much the lasers. And dolphins would probably be a better choice, or maybe sealions. And... and... and I still wanna see that movie.)

Given the history of both the US and Russia tapping underwater cables, I'd say the USS Jimmy Carter can expect a new addition to the MMP and a new body courtesy of the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit in the near future.

It's a lot easier to sneak into these servers through their data connections than to need physical access.

Everything interesting in the history of espionage comes down to "this used to be hard, but now this hard thing is easier than the thing which has been the easy thing, but nobody else noticed yet. YOINK!"

If physical security on this type of deployment gets ignored "because it's all underwater anyway", Interesting Things Will Happen. Even if it's just harvesting a pod to scavenge the metals out of it, meth-head air conditioner/catalytic converter style.

If you have deep sea diving technology that makes salvaging metal as you suggest an affordable option then go for it.

 

[Wickwick]

Maybe I’m wrong in assuming the more naval aspects of all this were a solved problem. The Gulf of Mexico at least is littered with seafloor vessels doing all kinds of things. I figure we know pretty well how to put tanks underwater.

For that matter, I can’t help wondering what offshore customers Microsoft might already have an eye on for these. What kind of geology can you do when your DC isn’t at the other end of a satellite link, but instead parked right under your rig?

But what’s fascinating for me is what life must be like for a server in one of these things. Five pages deep into the thread, we’re still arguing about thermodynamics and heating buildings on land (???). Heat is an interesting issue, but these aren’t underwater toasters. They’re complex systems adapted to a uniquely harsh and remote environment. I would be interested in knowing more about the design and operational considerations, and I’d love to know more about what MS learned about those aspects.

Or is all that a solved problem too?

Meh. The computer doesn't know it's in a hostile environment. It actually likes the nitrogen rather than oxygenated air apparently. The question asked before was whether these cases were pressurized to match the depth or held at one atmosphere. I would be interested to know the answer to that - especially as relates to the performance of spinning rust hard drives.

As for the rest, so long as a computer in its rack receives it electricity, has its heat removed and has a data connection to the outside world, it doesn't care where it is. It's not like there's a vibration or orientation issue with being submerged.

The article describes the back-up power concern for operating off a renewable power generation system. Optical links underwater are no big thing. All the sub-oceanic data cables have repeaters along their lengths. And the heat removal was addressed partially in the article. The ocean was used as a heat sink. Personally, I'd like to know if there was a coolant loop to efficiently couple the servers to the shell or if they just relied on fans but that would couple into the operating pressure discussion as well.