Microsoft adds web cam to underwater data centre

A few months ago Microsoft installed their Project Natick underwater data centre in the Scottish seas and began using it as a live data centre, studying the feasibility of the project under real-life conditions for 12 months.

Deploying datacenters along the coast has a significant advantage, data speeds. Since most of the world’s population lives within about 120 miles of the coast, data needs to travel less distance to reach coastal people.

It also takes advantage of the free cooling and renewable energy provided by the underwater location.

Now Microsoft has activated two webcams on the outside of the data centres, ostensibly to observe environmental conditions near the data centre, but more likely to generate some really cool live wallpapers.

If this research project becomes successful, it will enable companies to rapidly deploy datacenters along coastal regions with much less cost when compared to traditional data centres.

Datacenters are the backbone of the internet and as demand for datacenter resources across the computing industry grows exponentially, tech companies are searching for a solution to data storage that provides both the speed customers expect and solutions that are more environmentally sustainable.

Check out the cool videos at Microsoft here.

Via The Verge