Microsoft is doing some (literally) cool work testing data centers on the ocean floor.
While this might be adding to our ocean's heating up in new ways, and lead to unintended consequences, it's still fun to look at how far technology has come (and Microsoft is specifically researching the environmental impact).
Cool SaaS Marketing Facts for the bottom of the Sea
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Datacenter Designation: "Northern Isles" (SSDC-002).
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Dimensions: The size of a 40' ISO shipping container you might see on a ship, train, or truck.
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Power Source: 100% locally produced renewable electricity (wind, solar, tide and wave)
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Power Consumption: 240 KW.
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Payload: 12 racks containing 864 standard Microsoft datacenter servers and 27.6 petabytes of disk storage (comparable to thousands of high-end PCs and storage for about 5 million movies)
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Internal Operating Environment: 1 atmosphere pressure, dry nitrogen.
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Time to Deploy: Less than 90 days from factory ship to operation.
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Planned Length of Operation Without Maintenance: Up to 5 years.
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