Can my data swim?
By Fay Capstick
In previous weeks we have looked at data centres, including how they are run and how they can be made more environmentally efficient, but there is one type of data centre that we haven’t covered and that will be our blog investigation for this week. It turns out that some data centres are located underwater. We shall be investigating submerged or subsea data centres: why they exist, how they work, and the benefits of using them.
What is an underwater data centre?
An underwater data centre is exactly that: a data centre designed to be deployed and used underwater. Everything that you would expect to find in a traditional land-based data centre (servers, storage etc) will be present, except it will be underwater. They are currently approximately the same size as a shipping container.
How?
All the servers and storage are placed in containers that can safely house them underwater. They will have been specially designed to withstand the water pressure and be waterproof. The server containers are designed not to be touched or maintained during the duration of their time undersea.
Why?
As we have seen, the need for data centres is increasing massively as we all switch to cloud-based data storage. More data centres are needed, and they consume huge amounts of energy in order to keep the computers, which generate a lot of heat, cool. Water is naturally cooling, and many land-based data centres use water as their cooling method. A natural extension of this is to put the whole data centre itself underwater.
Further, by locating a data centre underwater, the servers will not be exposed to the oxygen and humidity that they would experience on land. Nor will they have humans in their environment, which could cause disturbance to the equipment. Their environment is filled with dry nitrogen.
Where are they?
They can be located in a large body of water and can be put in oceans, seas, or lakes. Microsoft has tested one off the coast of the Orkney Islands. This test was a multi-year project to assess viability.
Project Natick
Microsoft tested this Scottish underwater data centre with the name Project Natick. It was originally sunk in 2018 and a team regularly monitored how the servers were performing.
The test was deemed to be a success when the data centre was lifted to the surface.
Who is doing this?
Microsoft has tested underwater data centres, which they have found to be a practical and reliable solution that uses energy sustainably. They can contain approximately 900 servers. There are currently a couple of commercial providers, which we shall look at below.
What are the drawbacks?
One main drawback is that the whole data centre is literally underwater. This makes any maintenance on the physical equipment problematic. Indeed the data centre is designed not to be touched or maintained during service.
Getting an underwater data centre back to the surface takes many hours and calm seas are needed, which means planning is required, so access is a drawback. However, the length of time that the data centre will be deployed means that sudden retrieval should not be required. Once retrieved the data centre container will need washing with a pressure washer.
A negative that would need to be considered in future is the amount of heat that the water can absorb. Eventually, should a very large amount of servers be located in the ocean, then it would start to heat up the surrounding area and this could cause adverse environmental impacts.
What are the benefits?
One huge benefit is a data centre that doesn’t need human intervention for the time it is underwater. Something that is reliable is a huge benefit in terms of cost and effort. The research shows that an underwater data centre is likely to be 8 times more reliable than being run on land.
Microsoft report that a big benefit would be super fast cloud services to populations located near coastal areas. Anyone located near the coast where a data centre has been sunk would get a fast service as the data can have a shorter distance to travel than a traditional data centre. This is particularly important considering the fast data speeds everyone needs for streaming, gaming, and working.
If an underwater data centre were to be located next to an offshore wind farm then all of its power needs could be met from renewable energy, providing a big bonus in terms of environmental impact.
What next?
The next challenge is how to scale up the data centres. This could be by using larger containers to store the servers or linking multiple shipping containers together.
Is anyone doing this commercially yet?
Yes. China completed construction work on an underwater data centre in December. Its intended location is seawater off of Hainan province. It is being built and tested by Beijing Highlander Digital Technology Co Ltd and is predicted to result in a 30% energy saving over a traditional data centre. This will be the first commercial underwater data centre. Highlander believes that they have built on Microsoft’s findings and can reduce costs even further by deploying their equipment in shallower water.
Subsea Cloud (https://www.subseacloud.com/#Why-Subsea) also offers commercial underwater Cloud services, with locations in North America and the Gulf of Mexico containing 800 servers, located 9 metres underwater. Subsea Cloud is also planning a location in the North Sea, which would be located approximately 200m deep.
Is this the future of data centres?
It could be, and it certainly looks like it will be a more environmentally efficient way to run a data centre. A potential drawback could be locations that aren’t near a coast. However, half of the world’s population is within 120 miles of a coast, and therefore there is huge potential here. The next stage is to increase the commercial rollout and assess performance.
Final thoughts
At Parker Shaw we have been at the forefront of the sector we serve, IT & Digital Recruitment and Consulting, for over 30 years. We can advise you on all your hiring needs.
If you are looking for your next job in the IT sector please check our Jobs Board for our current live vacancies at https://parkershaw.co.uk/jobs-board