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Microsoft officially released the second generation of "Project South Sea Star" in France, which is a server designed entirely by Microsoft itself, and has carried out a very special way of placement, that is, these servers are all placed under the sea and cooled.
And Microsoft's approach has also been ridiculed by Huawei, Huawei boss Guo Ping once said in an interview: "Other people's servers are placed on the bottom of the sea in order to dissipate heat, and our family directly puts the servers in the hollowed-out Guizhou mountains."
What's the difference between Microsoft putting servers under the sea and Huawei putting servers in the mountains?
1. Damage to the server caused by high temperatures.
Nowadays, people's lives are inseparable from a variety of scientific and technological products, and behind the scientific and technological products are inseparable from the support of many hardware equipment, among which the server of computer enterprises is an extremely important hardware device.
However, any kind of hardware device will generate heat during use, and the server of a computer enterprise, as a high-performance hardware device, will naturally generate a lot of heat.
And the damage of high temperatures to the server is also serious.
There are a large number of electronic components inside the server, and these components will generate heat during the working process, and if the temperature is too high, the life of these components will be greatly shortened, and even in the case of too high temperature, these electronic components may burn out.
Therefore, for technology companies, how to dissipate heat from servers has become a headache.
Because the server needs to be kept relatively cold during use, and in the summer in some areas, the temperature is very high, and if the server is placed outdoors for heat dissipation, it will cause the temperature of the server to be too high and cannot run normally.
For technology companies, the best way to cool down servers is undoubtedly to put them in a cold place, so that they can use the cold temperatures to cool down the servers.
Therefore, technology companies often choose to place servers in some cold places for heat dissipation.
When Microsoft and Huawei were cooling their servers, they chose two completely different ways, Microsoft put the servers into the bottom of the sea, while Huawei put the servers into the mountains of Guizhou.
Second, Microsoft puts the server under the sea.
Microsoft put the servers under the sea with only one purpose, and that was to use seawater to dissipate the heat.
In 2018, Microsoft conducted a trial called Project South Sea Star, which put 12 servers into Kaesena Bay in the Orkney Islands of Scotland for two years.
It was in this test that Microsoft found that the way to put the server under the sea was very effective, not only greatly reducing the cost of heat dissipation, but also ensuring the long-term operation of the server.
So Microsoft commercialized the technology and expanded it in France.
Microsoft's way of cooling servers under the sea is actually more cost-effective, because the temperature on the ocean floor is relatively constant, and it will be much cooler than on land.
As a result, the cost of server cooling can be greatly reduced.
At the same time, Microsoft can also place the server closer to the user, which can greatly improve the response speed of the server.
But Microsoft's approach is not without its drawbacks, first of all, after the server enters the seabed, it needs to face the corrosion problem of seawater.
Sodium chloride in seawater will corrode the metal, so the service life of the server will be greatly shortened, and Microsoft will also carry out special treatment on the server in order to prevent the server from being corroded, such as surface plating.
In addition, it is very difficult to maintain the server under the sea, and the resulting maintenance costs will be extremely high.
At the same time, Microsoft's practice is also susceptible to adverse weather conditions, which can lead to server failures in the event of typhoons, hurricanes, etc.
3. Huawei puts the server in the mountain.
Huawei, on the other hand, put the server in the mountains of Guizhou, and there is a certain reason behind this.
In 2017, Huawei conducted a test in Zunyi, Guizhou, where a batch of servers were put into a hollowed-out mountain for eight months.
In the end, the test results were very successful, so Huawei chose to build its own data center in the mountains of Guizhou.
Compared to other provinces in the south, the climate in Guizhou is colder, and the cost of electricity in Guizhou is very low, which can bring more economical cooling methods to Huawei's data centers.
In Guizhou, Huawei's data center uses air to dissipate heat from servers, which can greatly reduce heat dissipation costs.
The climatic conditions in Guizhou are also extremely suitable for data centers, because the temperature here is relatively constant, and there will be no bad weather such as typhoons, so it can also greatly protect the integrity of the server.
In addition, Huawei's data center in Guizhou has received a lot of government support, which greatly improves the efficiency of data center construction.
IV. Conclusion.
Whether it's putting the server under the sea or into the mountains of Guizhou, both approaches have their advantages.
However, with the continuous intensification of global warming, this approach may also be affected to a certain extent, so in the future, technology companies may pay more attention to environmental protection and energy conservation when building data centers.
At the same time, in the future, technology companies may also explore more innovative ways to dissipate heat, such as the use of solar energy, geothermal and other resources.
In China, Guizhou's friendly climate conditions and low electricity bills will also attract more high-tech companies to set up data centers in Guizhou.
After all, Guizhou's land cost is low and electricity costs are low, which can greatly reduce the cost of high-tech enterprises in building data centers.
When high-tech enterprises choose the location for data center construction, in addition to hardware conditions, they will also consider soft factors such as government policy support, after all, it is also very attractive for high-tech enterprises to get more government support.
At the same time, with the development of science and technology in the future, the construction and maintenance of data centers may also be more intelligent and automated, which can greatly reduce human intervention and maintenance costs.