Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigate energy efficiency

Re:Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigat... by fowie on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @02:49AM (#17244870)

It's a fail-in-place data center. If a hard disk fails, you don't do anything. They used to replace telephony equipment all the time too, now it's just a locked room in a building. This is pushing data centers to be more hands-off.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigat... by 49bc on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @03:06AM (#17244952)

So they don’t do anything? Eventually you’re just maintaining stacks of errored and broken computers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigat... by jedberg on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @03:10AM (#17244970)

By then you've replaced the datacenter and you can shift the workload and then salvage it.

In theory you'd only leave it down there for three years anyway before everything in it is worth zero, at least to the IRS.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigat... by loeg on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @03:09AM (#17244965)

Yeah. Fail in place over the service lifetime. When enough stuff is failed that it isn't worth keeping down there, you pull it up and refill it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigat... by 49bc on Thursday June 07, 2018 @02:17PM (#17258596)

Based on the picture, "pulling it up" looks like a fairly intensive task, requiring boats, persons, etc.

That kind of thing eats directly into the ROI for a datacenter. I doubt it competes with a static building with a bunch of solar panels on top.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Microsoft has sunk a data centre in the sea to investigat... by loeg on Thursday June 07, 2018 @02:28PM (#17258704)

Might just fail-in-place, then. Although that looks pretty bad from an environmentalist perspective.

[ Parent | on HN ]