>> Welcome to Microsoft Unboxed.
[MUSIC]
Every week we're bringing you stories around
Microsoft technology and about the people behind that technology.
I'm one of your hosts Sonia Dara and I'm joined
by my colleague Colleen O'Brien,
one of your other co-hosts.
>> Hello.
>> We each have a story to share and tell one another and
this week's theme is datacenters.
Did I say it right? Sometimes I say data instead of data.
>> Data.
>> Datacenters.
>> I did some research on the Internet where everything is true.
>> As opposed to the library.
>> I didn't go to the library.
>> So I had encyclopedia at my parents house and as those like
NASA and it's like a line like they tried to explore space.
>> Wow, you have books.
Sorry, I didn't mean to shame you.
I learned that some datacenters are
built to withstand winds of up to 200 miles per hour,
9.0 earthquakes, and sustained external fire.
Which made me start thinking about all of
the natural disasters I was afraid of as a child.
The natural disaster that I was most afraid of was tornadoes.
>> Me too. Twister messed my head up.
>> Yeah.
>> I was born in Oklahoma,
raised in Georgia like,
tornadoes were very actually part of my life.
That beginning scene from Twister where
their dad holding down like, I was like.
>> I was also afraid of volcanoes.
Dante's Peak and Volcano came out at the same time.
That was a pretty traumatic part of my childhood.
I was just like scared of all of the volcanoes.
>> We live in Seattle and
everyone talks about beautiful mountain air.
It is a volcano that is overdue to erupt casually.
>> Why did those people live so close to Mount Vesuvius
but now we live really close to a volcano.
>> You don't have to worry because the datacenters,
datacenters will be able to survive.
>> Yeah. The recommendation is if there's a natural disaster,
get to a datacenter.
>> Or a datacenter whatever you call it.
Tomato, tomato. Do you know what a datacenter is?
>> Yes, I work in Azure.
>> I didn't mean to offend you, I'm sorry.
It was meant to help with
the dialogue but now we've continued on.
Datacenters essentially bring together everything that you
would need to help provide services to a region.
So it combines computing, networking, storage, power,
and software in supporting all this growing Cloud business,
because everyone wants Cloud and that's how we get.
There are some places where
it's been under-invested, historically.
We built two new data centers in Norway.
So one in the Stavanger.
>> That's great.
>> Oslo, I know how to say Oslo,
United Arab Emirates and then also some more support in Germany.
Basically it's all around these ambitions for meeting
this increasing demand for Cloud services.
But also it's around helping
companies innovate in their industries
as well and move towards the Cloud while
also meeting specific requirements, right?
So data residency, security and compliance needs.
Our favorite term for the last couple of months has been
General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR.
>> So some industries have a lot
of restrictions around security and
compliance and it requires that we're
building in their region for them to be able to meet those.
>> Exactly. We have this intent to be
the first global Cloud operator
to introduce Cloud regions in Switzerland.
Additionally in Germany, we will actually be
delivering more Cloud datacenters.
So they have a whole different set
of compliance rules they have to
follow including the Cloud Computing Compliance Controls Catalog.
>> Whoa.
>> Or the C5. Basically that will also
provide full connectivity to things like Azure,
Office 365 and Dynamics
365 plus all the security measurements on top of that.
We just announced that we're actually
bringing two new data centers to South Africa.
Which will be our first ever set of
datacenters on the African continent.
It is awesome. So it'll be in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
>> Excellent.
>> Yeah.
>> That's really exciting. Not all of
the datacenters that we are building here at
Microsoft are the standard ones that Sonia described.
>> Why you got to be like that?
>> We're also experimenting with different types
of datacenters in our efforts to be
more sustainable and to meet the needs of customers.
We're dabbling in what CEO Satya Nadella
has called "Relevant Moonshots."
The these out-of-the-box ideas or unboxed ideas, you might say.
One of these relevant moonshots is
Project Natick which is a research project to
determine the feasibility of
sub-sea datacenters powered by offshore renewable energy.
In other words, we dropped a datacenter in the ocean.
>> Boom.
>> Exactly. I'm picturing that's what it would sound like.
>> Why would we ever do this?
>> I know but, yeah.
>> Okay. Project Natick actually asks,
50 percent of us live near the coast.
Why doesn't our data?
Putting datacenters in bodies of water near
coastal cities would mean that
data has a shorter distance to travel.
That leads to fast and smooth web-surfing, video streaming,
and game playing as well as
authentic experiences for AI-driven technologies.
There's also a cost benefit to consider here.
The world's oceans are consistently cold.
I personally have jumped into
the Atlantic and the Pacific, both freezing.
>> Can confirm.
>> That consistent temperature offers free access to
cooling which is one of
the biggest costs for a land-based datacenters.
It gets super hot in there,
so the ocean is a way to minimize or mitigate that cooling cost.
Underwater datacenters could also serve as
anchor tenants for marine renewable energy such as,
offshore wind farms or banks of tidal turbines.
If we're investing in more of these underwater datacenters,
the trickle down effect will mean that there's going to be
more investment in research and development of
these renewable and sustainable energy sources.
>> Trickle down.
>> Did you do that on purpose?
>> No. Thought leaders in offshore renewable energy are in Europe
and we at Microsoft don't have a lot of
experience dropping things in the ocean.
>> That's fair.
>> So we worked with Scotland's
European Marine Energy Center which is
the largest site in the world for
offshore renewable energies like tide and wave energy.
We also partnered with Francis Naval Group to create
a shipping container sized datacenter
with a submarine design aesthetic.
>> Because it's got to look cool too.
>> We sunk the datacenter in the Scottish Sea and it's
expected to be there for about five years.
>> Oh, well.
>> It's currently processing workloads,
like it's in use.
>> It's working.
>> Be sure to check out the Project Natick website,
where you can see what the datacenters are seeing.
>> What? Anthropomorphizing the datacenters.
>> That's a motif in our show.
>> There are cameras underwater,
looking at the datacenter.
>> By no means does Project Natick replace
the datacenters that we've come to know and love on land.
>> Like mine in Switzerland.
>> Yes, but Project Natick is an exercise in
green tech and an exercise to
see if we can get to a mass production concept.
>> As you can see, our investment in building more datacenters,
whether it's by land or by sea is
incredibly important since it's such an integral part
for building out this Cloud infrastructure and
for really meeting this demand that we're seeing.
>> Now, we've moved onto our last segment
of the show, Outside the Box.
I have a question I'm going to ask Colleen,
she hasn't seen the questions she has to answer at 30 seconds.
Colleen, who was your childhood actor/actress crush?
>> Teen heartthrob Andrew Keegan.
>> Oh yes.
>> In the 10 Things I Hate About You,
he was the, like evil boyfriend.
>> Yeah, the super tan one.
>> He was always in like J4 Teen, Teen Bop.
>> Mine was like stereotypically Leonardo Dicaprio.
I had a fan club with my friend and it was I.L.L Club. I love Leo.
>> Oh, that's so cute.
>> Yeah, but we'd basically fight over him.
>> Sonia, what's your favorite non-standard ice cream flavor?
>> What's qualified as standard ice cream?
>> Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry.
>> Really?
>> I'm making up the rules for this question
>> I like it, you remember Coldstone?
>> Yes.
>> They have an apple pie a la mode.
>> Oh, that sounds amazing.
>> So they would put in like those big Dutch apples in
there with granola and caramel.
>> Yeah, I love moose tracks.
Moose tracks has like little peanut butter cups in it,
Fudge swirls in it.
You're just getting a little bit of everything.
>> Now I'm hungry. We're always looking for
some more fun questions that we can put into
the box if you want to hear anything
more embarrassing from me and Colleen.
Make sure to submit any of your questions to
the e-mail address below or comment on our video.
>> Be sure to remember to subscribe to
our YouTube channel, right down there.
We're releasing new episode every Thursday
morning 09:00 AM Pacific Time and that's it for now.
[MUSIC]
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[MUSIC]