Project Natick-Datacenters under sea, a project by microsoft.
Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud datacenter solutions that offer rapid provisioning, lower costs, high responsiveness, and are more environmentally sustainable.
2. Ø Project Natick is a Microsoft research project to manufacture and operate
an underwater datacenter.
Ø The initial experimental prototype vessel, christened the Leona Philpot after
a popular Xbox game character, was operated on the seafloor
approximately one kilometer off the Pacific coast of the United States from
August to November of 2015.
Ø Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud datacenter
solutions that offer rapid provisioning, lower costs, high responsiveness,
and are more environmentally sustainable.
What is Project Natick?
3. Ø Cloud computing continues to grow in importance, both as a driver of
economic growth and as a consumer of global resources.
Ø Project Natick is focused on a cloud future that can help better serve
customers in areas which are near large bodies of water (where nearly 50%
of society resides).
Ø The vision of operating containerized datacenters offshore near major
population centers anticipates a highly interactive future requiring data
resources located close to users.
Ø Deepwater deployment offers ready access to cooling, renewable power
sources, and a controlled environment.
Why Project Natick?
4. Ø Natick datacenters are envisioned to be fully recycled. Made from recycled
material which in turn is recycled at the end of life of the datacenter.
Ø A Natick datacenter co-located with offshore renewable energy sources
could be truly zero emission: no waste products, whether due to the power
generation, computers, or human maintainers are emitted into the
environment.
Ø With the end of Moore’s Law, the cadence at which servers are refreshed
with new and improved hardware in the datacenter is likely to slow
significantly.
Ø Natick datacenters consume no water for cooling or any other purpose.
Environmental Impact
5. Ø Project Natick is currently at the research stage. It’s still early days in
evaluating whether this concept could be adopted by Microsoft and other
cloud service providers.
When it will be available?
6. Ø A Natick datacenter deployment is intended to last up to 5 years, which is
the anticipated lifespan of the computers contained within.
Ø After each 5-year deployment cycle, the datacenter would be retrieved,
reloaded with new computers, and redeployed.
Ø The target lifespan of a Natick datacenter is at least 20 years. After that, the
datacenter is designed to be retrieved and recycled.
Lifespan of Datacenter
7. Ø Natick is a codename and carries no special meaning. It is a town in
Massachusetts(USA).
What does the name ‘Natick’ mean?