What is Project Natick?

Project Natick is a research project to build an underwater datacenter. Microsoft is investigating the numerous potential benefits that a standard, manufacturable, deployable undersea datacenter could provide to cloud users all over the world.



The Natick Phase 1 vessel was operated on the seafloor approximately one kilometer off the Pacific coast of the United States from August to November of 2015.



Phase 2 of Natick aims to demonstrate that we can economically manufacture full scale undersea datacenter modules and deploy them in under 90 days from decision to power on. The Phase 2 vessel was deployed at the European Marine Energy Centre located in the Orkney Islands, UK in June of 2018.



Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud datacenter solutions that offer less resource intensive options, rapid provisioning, lower costs, and high agility in meeting customer needs.

Why Project Natick?

Project Natick is focused on a cloud future that can help better serve customers in areas which are near large bodies of water (where nearly 50% of society resides). The vision of operating containerized datacenters offshore near major population centers anticipates a highly interactive future requiring data resources located close to users. Deepwater deployment offers ready access to cooling and a controlled environment, and has the potential to be powered by co-located renewable power sources.

What are the customer benefits of Project Natick?

Rapid provisioning: Able to deploy a datacenter at scale from start to finish in no more than 90 days.

Able to deploy a datacenter at scale from start to finish in no more than 90 days. Enables rapid response to market demand.



Latency: Latency is how long it takes data to travel between its source and destination. Half of the world’s population lives within 200 km of the ocean so placing datacenters offshore increases the proximity of the datacenter to the population, dramatically reducing latency and providing better responsiveness. Signals travel around 200 km/millisecond across the Internet, so if you are 200 km away one round trip to the datacenter takes about 2 milliseconds but if you are 4000 km away each round trip takes 40 milliseconds.

Latency is how long it takes data to travel between its source and destination. Half of the world’s population lives within 200 km of the ocean so placing datacenters offshore increases the proximity of the datacenter to the population, dramatically reducing latency and providing better responsiveness. Signals travel around 200 km/millisecond across the Internet, so if you are 200 km away one round trip to the datacenter takes about 2 milliseconds but if you are 4000 km away each round trip takes 40 milliseconds. For example, if you are playing a video game like Minecraft, latency would affect how fast the blocks you place show up in the game. Or if you are browsing the web, latency could affect how long it takes to completely paint a new webpage with lots of content. Modern television at 30 frames per second is just 33 milliseconds per frame. Some videogames exceed 100 frames per second or just 10 milliseconds per frame.



Sustainability: We aspire to create a sustainable datacenter which leverages locally produced green energy, providing customers with additional options to meet their own sustainability requirements.

We aspire to create a sustainable datacenter which leverages locally produced green energy, providing customers with additional options to meet their own sustainability requirements. Natick datacenters are envisioned to be fully recycled. Made from recycled material which in turn is recycled at the end of life of the datacenter.



A Natick datacenter co-located with offshore renewable energy sources could be truly zero emission: no waste products, whether due to the power generation, computers, or human maintainers are emitted into the environment.



We see this as an opportunity to field long-lived, resilient datacenters that operate “lights out” – nobody on site – with very high reliability for the entire life of the deployment, possibly as long as 10 years.



Natick datacenters consume no water for cooling or any other purpose.



How would a Natick datacenter impact the environment?

Natick datacenters are envisioned to be fully recycled. Made from recycled material which in turn is recycled at the end of life of the datacenter.

A Natick datacenter co-located with offshore renewable energy sources could be truly zero emission: no waste products, whether due to the power generation, computers, or human maintainers are emitted into the environment.

We see this as an opportunity to field long-lived, resilient datacenters that operate “lights out” – nobody on site – with very high reliability for the entire life of the deployment, possibly as long as 10 years.

Natick datacenters consume no water for cooling or any other purpose. We aspire to create a sustainable datacenter which leverages locally produced green energy, providing customers with additional options to meet their own sustainability requirements.

How long was the Phase 2 vessel in the water?

Microsoft’s Project Natick team deployed the Northern Isles datacenter 117 feet deep to the seafloor in June 2018. For the next two years, team members tested and monitored the performance of the datacenter’s servers.

What other Microsoft groups are supporting Project Natick?

Project Natick is a complementary effort bolstering Microsoft’s ever evolving datacenter ecosystem. The researchers have collaborated with employees from across Microsoft, especially from Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, who have contributed their expertise to the project in such diverse areas as server design, datacenter cooling and electrical architecture, network provisioning, sustainability, reliability analysis, and economic modeling.

What did you learn?

In Phase 1, we confirmed that we can successfully deploy and operate datacenter equipment in an undersea environment. Challenges our prototype tackled included cooling large scale electronics and withstanding the effects of biofouling.

In Phase 2, we confirmed that we can economically manufacture full scale undersea datacenter modules and deploy them in under 90 days from decision to power on.

With the retrieval and preliminary analysis of the phase 2 vessel, we’ve now confirmed that not only can we successfully deploy, operate, and scale an undersea datacenter, but also that this more sustainable approach actually improves the performance and reliability of the datacenter when compared to land. Project Natick had 1/8th the failure rate of land datacenters. Not only is a greener future possible, but it is economically practical.

What are the key factors that contributed to Project Natick’s greater reliability?

We believe that the atmosphere of nitrogen, which is less corrosive than oxygen, and the absence of people to bump and jostle components, are the primary reasons for the difference. If the post-deployment analysis proves this hypothesis correct, we may be able to translate the benefits to land datacenters.

How does Microsoft plan to use these learnings in its own datacenters?

The proven reliability of underwater datacenters has informed efforts to serve customers who need to deploy and operate tactical and critical datacenters anywhere in the world.

Lessons learned from Project Natick are further informing Microsoft’s datacenter sustainability strategy around energy, waste, and water.

What is different about Phase 2?



For Phase 2, our goals are to:



Develop one full scale prototype subsea datacenter, which could be used as a modular building block to aggregate subsea datacenters of arbitrary size



Gain an understanding of the economics of undersea datacenter TCO (total cost of ownership is the full lifetime cost of a datacenter including manufacture, deployment, operations, and recovery) should we proceed to commercial deployment



Efficiently deploy this prototype in coastal waters (within 12 nautical miles of land) at a depth of no more than 328 feet (100 meters)



Demonstrate Lights Out operation during a deployment cycle of up to 5 years



Power the prototype from a nearby marine renewable energy source; and



Explore cloud datacenter solutions that offer less resource intensive options We anticipate that Phase 2 will surface design and operational issues that may require further refinement post-deployment and should be captured during Phase 2 to inform subsequent work, in particular, productization.



* A lights out data center is a server or computer room that is physically or geographically isolated, thereby limiting environmental fluctuations and human access. Unnecessary energy used for lighting and for maintaining a proper climate around frequently used doors can be saved by going lights out. Phase 1 demonstrated the feasibility of the subsea datacenter concept, including our ability to remotely operate a Lights Out datacenter* for long periods of time, operating with a highly efficient PUE (power usage effectiveness is total power divided by server power; lower values are better, 1.0 is perfect) of 1.07, and using no water at all, for a perfect WUE (water usage effectiveness is the liters consumed per megawatt of power per minute; lower values are better, 0 is best) of exactly 0 vs land datacenters which consume up to 4.8 liters of water per kilowatt-hour.For Phase 2, our goals are to:We anticipate that Phase 2 will surface design and operational issues that may require further refinement post-deployment and should be captured during Phase 2 to inform subsequent work, in particular, productization.

Is a Natick datacenter renewable/recyclable?

Our vision is for Natick datacenter deployments of up to 5 years, which is the anticipated lifespan of the computers contained within the vessel. After each 5-year deployment cycle, the datacenter vessel would be retrieved, reloaded with new computers, and redeployed. The target lifespan of a Natick datacenter is at least 20 years. After that, the datacenter is designed to be retrieved and recycled.

Are there other similar efforts in Microsoft Research to improve the sustainability of datacenters?

Both Microsoft Research and Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise, the business unit responsible for Microsoft’s datacenters, have ongoing research projects and specific initiatives focused on reliability, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other efforts to improve the sustainability of our datacenters.

When will Natick datacenters be more widely available in a product?

Project Natick is currently at the research stage. It’s still early days in evaluating whether this concept could be adopted by Microsoft and other cloud service providers.

What does the name Natick mean?

Natick is a codename and carries no special meaning. It is a town in Massachusetts.

Does Natick use AI?

Natick uses AI to monitor the servers and other equipment for signs of failure and to seek to identify any correlations between environment and server longevity. Because Natick operates like a standard land datacenter, the computers inside Natick can be used for machine learning to provide artificial intelligence to other applications just as in any other Microsoft datacenter.

How are Natick datacenters powered?