Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years

Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by HenryBemis on Monday September 14, 2020 @03:59PM (#24474438)

That's a good enough reason to pull it out, replace/upgrade the equip, and drop it back in with the new setup (new sources of energy), and if they get the whole thing to transmit wireless-ly with a 1% failures per 2 years (8 out of the 855 servers) then it's a truly set-and-forget thing. And they can be bringing them up every 2-5-10 years to replace/upgrade the HW and drop it back in.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by entropicdrifter on Monday September 14, 2020 @05:41PM (#24475477)

One would imagine that the signal to noise ratio for wireless data transmission in the ocean would be pretty abysmal. That said, there's no reason why they couldn't just run a fiber optic cable out from it, as long as it's designed to rotate around said cable.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by HenryBemis on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @01:40AM (#24478198)

I thought of the cable solution, but that would have some wear and tear if the capsule gets to move around. I was imagining a periscope-y antenna, in the form of a buoy.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by theelous3 on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @05:06AM (#24479251)

Short range high power wireless to cable. Basically cable but with a wear buffer.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by eru on Monday September 14, 2020 @09:28PM (#24477014)

Microsoft probably has enough money that they could leave the original one in, and pop down a new one with the new green energy.

(Of course, individual projects still have finite budgets.)

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by pvaldes on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @10:47AM (#24493211)

I assume that the project approved by the UK government specifies some requirements about environment protection and the fate of the material.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by cutemonster on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @06:11PM (#24487333)

Building a new one would take more time

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by eru on Friday September 18, 2020 @03:14AM (#24513854)

Yes, but they can build multiple in parallel.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by Cerium on Monday September 14, 2020 @07:06PM (#24476160)

It would need an antenna buoy as wireless does not transmit well in salt water.

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Re:Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two y... by manderley on Monday September 14, 2020 @04:54PM (#24475033)

If that was the reason, we'd know about it from the PR release. This must have been a failure.

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