Microsoft has recently sunk its data servers in the seafloor off the Orkney Islands, in the United Kingdom. According to media reports, the tech giant has dropped a small fraction of its data centers in the bottom of the ocean as part of its Project Natick which aims to bring an energy efficient cooling system for data centers.
What Is Project Natick
Microsoft has dubbed its attempt to sink the data centers into the bottom of the sea as Project Natick. The company has dropped a small portion of its data center enclosed by white cylinder, into the bottom of the sea in a bid to save energy.
According to BBC, Microsoft envisages deploying five such cylinders to deploy a submerged data center in 90 days. The current data center which is powered with an active cable consists only 12 racks of the Microsoft’s data servers, and they equal the storage capacity of 5 million movies. The data center reportedly has 864 servers packed in 40 feet container.
Project Natick- A Green Tech Solution
The ever-expanding data centers demand tremendous energy for their operations. Power is required to cool off these data servers so that they operate smoothly. But, off-shore data centers that use energy from fossil fuels are responsible for carbon emissions and environmental hazards. Therefore, a new submerged data center that will require less power for its cooling will not only save costs for the data companies, but it will also leave the minimum impact on the environment. Hence, Project Natick is a kind of Green Tech solution by Microsoft, which will help the company to cut-down its operational costs and earn some extra revenue by offering the data storage services, once the project becomes successful.
Why Microsoft Chose the Orkney
There was also a reason for choosing Orkney as the location of under the sea data center. The island is famous for generating energy through renewable resources like wind power. Various energy generation projects through tidal sources and solar power are also under the experiment at Orkney. Hence, Microsoft has deployed its data centers at this place so that they can derive power from renewable resources of energy and leave no carbon emissions to harm the environment.
The companies are coming up with energy efficient strategies as a precautionary measure of climate change which is major global risk world is facing today.
Future Prospects for Project Natick
Apart from saving energy, the Project Natick will help simulate other consequences as well. Like, the company will be able to see how customers can enjoy fast surfing by cutting down and back forth between the users and servers; this is because a significant population of the world lives near the coasts.
Hence, the success of the Project Natick in terms of reducing the power costs, providing renewable energy, minimizing the impact on the environment and providing the fast speed to the end users, will determine the prospects. Microsoft might be making a massive revenue after selling out it’s under the sea data servers services to the customers.
