High-level underwater photography

Both Microsoft and Huawei are top technology companies in the world.

Microsoft is an established PC software provider. In recent years, it has carried out drastic business rectification, focusing on the development of cloud services.

Huawei is one of the most proud national enterprises in China. In a short period of 30 years, it has achieved the number 1 in the world communication field. In recent years, consumer business has grown rapidly. Without US sanctions, Samsung might have been beaten out of the water last year. Although sanctioned by the US imperialists, it still stands.

Whether Microsoft sinks the server into the sea or Huawei digs a mountain to put it there, one of the main factors includes operation and maintenance costs. But this is not the only factor, there are many other reasons. And the nature of these two projects is actually very different.

Let's take a closer look at these two projects first.

Microsoft Server Sinks into the Sea Experiment Microsoft's project of sinking the server into the sea is called Natick, named after a small American city.

The experiment of this project started at 20 15, and the irrigation experiment was carried out in California data center to verify the feasibility of the project under water.

Later, in 20 18, an entire data center officially sank to the bottom of the sea 35 meters deep in Scotland, including 864 servers and 27.6PB storage devices. Until September this year 14, Microsoft announced the success of its latest experiment, indicating that the future underwater data center is a feasible solution. So, what are the benefits of Microsoft's experiment?

1. Reduce costs and combine renewable energy.

A large part of the power cost of server maintenance is consumed by the cold calibration process of the server. Putting the server on the bottom of the sea, the cold seawater naturally helps to cool the server, which will save a lot of energy compared with land. Microsoft cooperates with Naval Group, a 400-year-old French company, which has world-leading technology in manufacturing and maintaining military ships and submarines, and applies submarine heat exchange technology to this project.

At the same time, Microsoft also hopes to combine with renewable energy sources in the ocean, such as tidal energy and offshore wind energy, and realize the self-sufficient operation of the submarine data center through these renewable energy sources.

One more thing, even the rent is saved at the bottom of the sea.

2. Location advantage and rapid deployment

Microsoft submarine data center is a modular concept. More than half of the world's population lives within 20 kilometers of the coastline, so it is a very good choice to place the data center in the sea area of coastal cities in blocks, which can greatly reduce the delay of data transmission and give users a better online experience.

At the same time, a data center module takes only 90 days from planning and deployment to landing, which is much faster than building a data center on land with current technology.

3. Low failure, no need for operation and maintenance, and recycling.

Because the seabed environment is closed, there will be no human factors. The closed container will also be filled with inert gas, so that the server can operate in a constant temperature and humidity environment. According to Microsoft, the failure rate of underwater data centers is only one-eighth of that of terrestrial data centers. However, once problems occur, the maintenance cost and difficulty of underwater data center are much higher than that of land. Therefore, Microsoft expects a data center module that can run underwater for five years without dimensions. When its service life is over, it can be recycled again.

Huawei hollows out the mountain to place the server Next, let's look at Huawei hollowing out the mountain to place the server, which is the data storage center of Qixing Lake in Guizhou under construction.

1. government preferential policies

The choice of Guizhou is inseparable from various preferential policies of the state.

Guiyang is the first city in China to develop big data industry as a strategic emerging industry. Huawei is not the only company building a data center in Guizhou. Tencent, Ali, Apple and many other companies have also invested in building data centers in Guizhou. Power consumption is the biggest expenditure in the operation and maintenance cost of data center. Guizhou is rich in electricity, and with the strong preferential policies of the local government, the lowest electricity price is 0.35 yuan/kWh, which greatly reduces the operation and maintenance costs of enterprises. At the same time, the government also provided a large area of low-cost land, which reduced the cost of data center construction by 10%.

2. Stable geological zone and suitable environment.

Guizhou is located in the geological stability zone, and there will be no other natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes or floods. At the same time, the climate in Guizhou is suitable, and the annual temperature is relatively average, neither too high nor too low, which is suitable for server operation and maintenance.

Huawei adopts the way of digging the mountain and putting the server, which not only skillfully uses the mountain structure as a building, but also takes advantage of the stable and constant temperature of the mountain, killing two birds with one stone.

Who is better? Understand the above two projects, and then look back to see who is better? In fact, these two projects are not equal in attributes and comparability.

Microsoft's Natick is still an application research project, which has not been fully commercialized. Its data module deployment mode is mainly to provide users with better Internet access and cloud service experience.

Huawei chose to dig a mountain and build a data center in Guizhou, which is a fully mature commercial project. Huawei is building an IDC data center. I guess it's similar to Apple's before, as a cloud storage center of Huawei. For example, the data stored in cloud hosting in our Huawei mobile phone is an icy data storage center.

To sum up, if I have to judge, I think Microsoft's submarine modular data service center, combined with renewable energy, is a very environmentally friendly and creative project. From the perspective of consumer experience, in the deeper and wider cloud services in the future, perhaps the project may not be able to land, at least it will provide creativity for everyone. Huawei digs mountains to build data centers, follows the rhythm of the times in a down-to-earth manner, conforms to Huawei's consistent style, looks at a certain field, goes forward bravely, and ranks first in the world if it wants to do it.

Recently, Huawei BU integrated with CBG, a consumer business under the leadership of Yu Chengdong, expecting to open another day for Huawei in the future and set an example for China enterprises. Huawei is not only a Fortune 500 company! At the same time, I also wish that the glory sold from Huawei, although no longer belonging to Huawei, can still inherit the fine tradition from Huawei and continue the "glory" on Huawei's mobile phone!

Both Microsoft's sinking into the sea and Huawei's digging mountains are looking for solutions to reduce the energy consumption of data centers. The solution they are looking for is to make full use of natural conditions to cool the data center, thus reducing the huge cooling cost of the data center. As for who is better? It's hard to draw conclusions. We can compare them from the following aspects:

1. From the cooling effect, in 20 17, Huawei chose to build the world's largest data center in Gui 'an New District, Guizhou Province. The data center directly hollows out a hill, and then cools the data center through the local natural low temperature environment. Guizhou is a plateau region with low latitude and high altitude, which has both plateau and monsoon climate characteristics, with small temperature change, warm winter and cool summer, and pleasant climate. The average annual temperature in Guiyang is only 15.7, which is very suitable for the operation requirements of data centers.

Judging from the annual temperature curve in the above picture, Huawei's data center is selected in Guizhou, which only exceeds 25% in two months of a year. Moreover, the temperature in the cave is relatively constant, even in summer, it can be stabilized at around 25℃. Not to mention other months. Therefore, building a data center in such a cave can be naturally cold-cut by fans all year round. There is little time to use air conditioning. Compared with the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, it reduces a lot of air conditioning and refrigeration. At least 80% of the refrigeration cost can be saved.

In 20 18, Microsoft sank a North Island data center loaded with 864 servers into the sea in northern Scotland. Test the submarine data center and try to use seawater to cool the data center. The data show that the annual average water temperature on the surface of the three oceans in the world is about 17.4, and the water temperature generally decreases with the increase of depth, and the water temperature at 1000 meters is about 4.5. For Microsoft, it is possible to find 1 place in shallow water that does not need air conditioning and refrigeration all the year round. This cooling effect is not much different from Huawei's mountain digging.

2. From the construction point of view, Huawei's digging mountain data center is similar to digging a tunnel to build a house. One-time capital construction project investment is relatively large. Microsoft's deep-sea data center needs to produce and use a similar container integrated data center, and then put the container integrated data center in it with a circular submersible. Install a seawater heat exchange system here. From the construction speed, Microsoft Deep Sea Data Center can be mass-produced in the factory, and the seabed is very vast, with relatively short construction time and lower cost. Huawei's Dig Mountain Data Center takes a long time to build, but it can be built at one time and more servers can be placed. Structurally, Microsoft is slightly better.

3. From the point of view of use and maintenance, Huawei's Dig Mountain Data Center is the same as our usual data center, which is very convenient to use and maintain. Microsoft's Shenhai data center is in a lot of trouble. Mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Huawei Digging Mountain Data Center does not have these problems. Therefore, from the perspective of use and maintenance, Huawei is slightly better.

Summarize whether it is Microsoft Shenhai Data Center or Huawei Digging Mountain Data Center. They all have a common goal, which is to reduce the energy consumption of data center refrigeration and realize energy conservation and environmental protection. The energy-saving and refrigeration effects of the two are similar. Microsoft's deep-sea data center seems to be faster in construction, while Huawei's digging mountain data center is much stronger in use and maintenance.

Microsoft is an Internet giant in the United States, and its server research is also the most advanced in the world. So their design of sinking the server into the seabed is based on relevant scientific principles. Huawei in China, on the other hand, arranged its servers in the mountains. What is the scientific principle? Who is the more powerful technology giant of the two countries? Heat dissipation has always been the biggest headache for server developers, so how do Huawei and Microsoft solve this problem?

The server mainly consists of hard disk, memory, CPU and other systems. It is an object with faster running speed, higher load and more expensive price than ordinary computers. Because of the high load of the server, overheating often occurs. If the heat dissipation problem is not solved, it will affect the running function of the server.

Microsoft, the American Internet giant, has adopted the way of seawater cooling. As the name implies, the seawater cooling method is to put the server under the seawater, which has high mass density and strong fluidity. Once the server sinks into the seawater, the water in the seawater can continuously flow, reducing the temperature of the heat generated by the server, and achieving the effect of cooling down. However, another headache is that electrical appliances are afraid of water. Once the server encounters a large amount of water, it will cause a short circuit and lead to the scrapping of electrical appliances. So Microsoft specially hired a famous professional team from a certain country to solve this problem. This professional team designed an underwater server center by using the functional principles of air tightness and water resistance of submarines. After many studies and experiments, it finally succeeded.

Huawei adopts the regional cooling method. As we all know, China is a country with a huge climate difference between north and south. Guizhou, China has always been a place with subtropical monsoon climate. Its topography is high in the west and low in the east, and its landforms are mainly plateaus, mountains, hills and basins. Poor lighting conditions, frequent rainy days and relatively high relative humidity. Therefore, Huawei scientists use Guizhou's unique cool climate to solve the heat dissipation problem.

However, what makes Huawei scientists have a headache is that Guizhou is a big mountain, so the installation and connection of the server is more troublesome. Huawei put the server in a cave in Guizhou, which greatly reduced the cost of the warehouse. The caves in Guizhou are all connected. As long as the extended connection network system is adopted, the problem of server connection can be solved. Coupled with the unique karst landform in Guizhou, the problem of server data loss caused by earthquakes, mudslides and geological disasters has been reduced. The core of electrical appliances is electricity, so how does a high-power server solve the problem of power transportation in the mountains? Guizhou is rich in hydropower resources, so Huawei scientists have reduced the power supply problem of Huawei servers according to local conditions.

Hongjiadu Hydropower Station in Guizhou

Often the price of development is at the expense of the ecological environment, so whether the server is placed on the seabed or in the mountains will cause serious pollution to the surrounding environment? How did the science and technology giants of the two countries solve this ecological problem?

Artificial coral reef

Clear water and lush mountains are priceless assets. How can Huawei solve the environmental pollution caused by its servers in the mountains of Guizhou? In Gui 'an New District of Guizhou, the National Big Data Center, Huawei Data Center and Tencent Data Center have all settled here, making the quiet Guizhou Dashan one of the largest data storage centers in the world. Therefore, many local environmental monitoring stations will be established and named Environmental Cloud (offline monitoring station online APP). The establishment of environmental cloud has changed the previous state of grass-roots workers' eyes, ears and ears. 24-hour monitoring of the province's hydrological environment, air environment, control of Guizhou's overall environmental supervision. This environmental protection cloud APP function also has the function of mass complaints. If citizens find environmental pollution incidents in the depths of the mountains in Guizhou, they can take photos through their mobile phones, leave evidence and make environmental complaints through the APP. Relevant departments will investigate according to complaints from the masses. Therefore, Huawei's servers in Dashan, Guizhou are equipped with anti-pollution equipment to minimize environmental pollution.

Summarizing the treatment methods of relative heat dissipation, the technology giants of the two countries are comparable.

Compared with the way of dealing with ecological environment problems, the design and research of the two science and technology giants meet the requirements of ecological environment.

Compared with the server power supply processing method, I agree with Huawei's method of reducing electricity charges and solving power supply according to local conditions. In this regard, Huawei is better.

I don't know if Microsoft executives often use the refrigerator to cool down when their mobile phones are hot, caress their heads with ice cubes when they are hot, and then suddenly think of solving the problem of server fever and hide their servers deep under the sea.

However, Microsoft is not a precedent. As early as 1850, the world's first submarine communication cable was laid in the English Channel. A hundred years later, Microsoft also sank its data center to the bottom of the sea.

It is understood that Microsoft once sank an iron drum about 12 meters long and 3 meters in diameter into Scottish waters. This iron drum contains a total of 864 servers, and this iron drum will provide cloud computing capabilities and Internet links for the waters around the Scottish Islands.

According to Microsoft's explanation, sinking this huge server into the water is also for cost consideration. If you put it on land, you will face land costs, labor costs, water and electricity, which is very troublesome, but it is very simple to put it in the sea. The seabed is like a natural refrigerator.

I have to say here why Microsoft sank the data center to the bottom of the sea, certainly not just because of cost saving. As a well-known Internet technology company, Microsoft's products serve the whole world, and the quality is still very good. Suppose in China, we deal with Microsoft almost every day. When I turn on the computer, I use Microsoft's system, and the office software I use is basically from Microsoft. It can be said that Microsoft has a great influence in China.

As the heart of computer data, the server will generate heat, which is a common phenomenon. Sinking data into the seabed can not only solve the problem of fever, but also enable residents around the sea where the server is located to experience the Internet in time. In addition, besides solving the problem of fever, the most important thing is environmental protection.

Then, since Microsoft has made such high achievements in sinking the data center into the seabed, why doesn't Huawei learn from Microsoft and put it in the deep mountains and forests?

First, Huawei's data center is different from Microsoft's data center. Microsoft can use a box several meters wide and 12 meters long to install the server and sink into the sea, but Huawei can't. Huawei's data center is very large. If it sinks into the seabed, the engineering quantity and cost will be high. The bigger the data center, the less safe it is to put it into the seabed.

Huawei chose to build a data center in Dashan, Guizhou, rather than in other parts of China. The first is cost, and the second is environment and employment.

Guizhou has a relatively high terrain, and its land resources are yet to be developed, which is supported by the national government. Guizhou is also promoting investment in a large area and giving great preferential policies.

In addition, there are many plateaus and mountains in Guizhou, and the temperature in some areas is relatively low, so the environment is more suitable for building data centers. Huawei is building a data center in Guizhou, not under the sea. In fact, Huawei is not only thinking about itself, but also thinking about the country, which has promoted local economic development and employment.

Large technology companies produce more and more data every day, and how to store these data has become a difficult problem. Many companies choose to set up their own data centers. The location of data center is particularly important, and many factors such as earthquake prevention, safety, energy saving and easy maintenance need to be considered.

When the servers storing data are running, they will consume a lot of power, especially when thousands of servers are running at the same time, the power generated by the whole computer room is very terrible. When the CPU and other components are running, the server will generate a lot of heat, so it is necessary to set up a special cooling system.

So for the location of the server, different vendors will have different solutions. Microsoft and Huawei chose two completely different solutions. Microsoft chose to put some servers under the sea, and Huawei chose to put the servers in the mountains of Guizhou. The latter is a common practice of many domestic technology companies.

So who is better than the two schemes?

Economic cost Huawei needs to pay a huge construction cost for hollowing out caves at one time, but there is almost no other cost except land acquisition and construction cost. Microsoft only needs to choose a seabed with good geological conditions.

Of course, Microsoft servers need to be wrapped in steel sealed cabins. Huawei's construction cost is higher. However, Huawei stores more servers. At present, Huawei has stored 600,000 servers in the Qixing Lake data center, while Apple has a limited number of servers stored under the sea. At present, only hundreds of experimental servers are stored on the seabed.

Maintenance cost Guizhou is rich in electric power resources and the electricity price is relatively cheap, but the servers stored in caves can be maintained manually at any time. On the contrary, once the Microsoft server fails, it will be very troublesome to maintain. It is necessary not only to salvage the server with a crane, but also to take it out of the sealed cabin. The optical cable connecting the server may also be damaged by marine animals. Therefore, the maintenance cost of Microsoft is relatively high.

Safe Guizhou karst landform geology is relatively stable, and the probability of debris flow and earthquake is particularly small. Huawei's servers can basically guarantee stable operation, while the marine ecological environment is complex, with frequent ocean currents, tsunamis and earthquakes. Even if the location is particularly good, there is no guarantee of worry-free Of course, the sealed capsule may not be afraid of marine life, but there are inevitably omissions. In short, the security of undersea storage servers is not as good as that of land.

Heat dissipation effect Guizhou has high altitude and good climatic conditions, while the caves in Guizhou have constant temperature and good ventilation conditions, which can be called natural air conditioning. Enterprises don't need to pay extra for air conditioning, but the temperature on the seabed is relatively stable. The ocean temperature remains at 17 degrees Celsius all the year round, and the seabed temperature is even lower. At the same time, the flow of seawater will take away heat. Judging from the heat dissipation effect, both of them are basically half a catty.

So who is better? Personally, I think it is better to build it in a cave. Microsoft put the server at the bottom of the sea, but this is just an experiment. In fact, it has not been widely adopted. At present, hundreds of large-scale technology companies have built data centers in Guizhou, and the advantages of Guizhou are very obvious. On the other hand, the server is built on the ground, which can also bring local employment and tax revenue, and also produce certain economic benefits.

Digging mountains must have great advantages! Cooling is only one aspect, digging mountains and strengthening them are natural air-raid shelters! When there is a war, the consequences of data center destruction are obvious to all.

Several major Internet companies have built data centers in Guizhou, mainly based on the following considerations: 1. From the safety point of view, the geographical location of high mountains and dense forests is remote, far from the coast, strategically backward and has sufficient strategic depth.

2, the climate is low, which is beneficial to the heat dissipation of the equipment.

3. Storage equipment consumes a lot of electricity, Guizhou has sufficient electricity, and the electricity price has an advantage.

4, far away from the heavy industry base, the electromagnetic environment is good,

5. The centralized construction of data center facilitates the mutual exchange of big data.

6. With the support of local governments, tax incentives are strong.

Obviously, hollowing out the mountain may be more reliable.

Now, in order to cool down the server, save electricity and ensure the stable operation of the server, it can be said that all companies are trying their best to take various measures. Among them, Microsoft sank the server into the seabed, and Huawei hollowed out the mountains in Guizhou. Both methods are good, but relatively speaking, Huawei may be better at hollowing out the hills.

1, hollowing out the mountain is better. In order to save energy and cost, Huawei can have enough space to place a large number of servers. The measure taken is to hollow out the mountain in Guizhou. In Guizhou, the annual temperature may be around 12- 19 degrees, while in caves in the mountains, the temperature may be more stable, and the temperature may remain at 12 degrees or even lower. In this way, when the server is running, the heat may be lower and the energy consumption such as heat dissipation loss will be less.

And in the cave, if something can be solved at any time, and in the cave, the geological structure is more stable, and the cost may be lower in the long run.

So I feel that Huawei is better at hollowing out hills and putting servers.

2. In order to reduce energy consumption and ensure the stable operation of the server, Microsoft sank the server to the bottom, which is slightly worse than some Microsoft companies. At the bottom of the ocean, the temperature in many places is not high all year round. At the bottom of the ocean at a depth of 1000 meters, the water temperature is about four or five degrees. But in theory, Microsoft may sink to the bottom of the water, about thirty or forty meters deep, and the temperature may be fourteen or fifteen degrees, because if it is deeper, the cost of the server shell may increase greatly.

And relatively speaking, the cost of sinking the server into the water may be higher, and it may also be affected by waves and erosion, and it is not very convenient to operate and maintain it in the future.

So Microsoft sank the server into the water, feeling a little worse, which may cost more and it is not very convenient to operate and maintain.

3. Conclusion In summary, I feel that Huawei is better at hollowing out hills, which is convenient for operation and maintenance, and the long-term cost may be lower.

It must be more convenient in the mountains.

The enemy will block you, and the water can cover you. Who is better? Be clear at a glance.

Simply talking about cooling efficiency, sinking into the seabed is definitely faster. Huawei put the server in the mountains of Guizhou. Although the ambient temperature is also low, there is no low temperature and all-inclusive coverage of seawater.

However, the server is not a perpetual motion machine, and problems will definitely occur after a certain number of years of use, whether it is a system problem or a hardware problem. When maintenance is needed, people can go in or take it out in the mountains.

In the sea, the maintenance of the server needs special salvage, and it is unlikely that the engineer will dive into the seabed. It also involves security issues, and it is also a big trouble in case of water.

To sum up, from the perspective of subsequent maintenance costs, it is better to put it in the mountains.