{"id":5878,"date":"2020-11-16T07:05:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T15:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=5878"},"modified":"2026-04-14T06:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:33:11","slug":"how-microsoft-kept-its-underwater-datacenter-connected-while-retrieving-it-from-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/how-microsoft-kept-its-underwater-datacenter-connected-while-retrieving-it-from-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"How Microsoft kept its underwater datacenter connected while retrieving it from the ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MicrosoftWhen Microsoft announced its plan to build an underwater datacenter, Lathish Kumar Chaparala was excited.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the initial rollout of Project Natick, I used to log on to their website and watch the live feed of the underwater camera that was mounted on the datacenter,\u201d says Chaparala, a senior program manager on the networking team in Microsoft Digital, the engineering organization at Microsoft that builds and manages the products, processes, and services that Microsoft runs on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Little did he know that he and his team would later be brought in to extend the network connectivity of this underwater datacenter so it could be safely fished out of the sea.<\/p>\n

But the story begins much earlier than that.<\/p>\n

We saw the potential benefit [of developing an underwater datacenter] to the industry and Microsoft. People responded to our work as if we were going to the moon. In our eyes, we were just fulfilling our charter\u2014taking on challenging problems and coming up with solutions.<\/p>\n

– Mike Shepperd, senior research and development engineer on the Microsoft Research team<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The idea of an underwater datacenter came out of ThinkWeek, a Microsoft event where employees shared out-of-the-box ideas that they thought the company should pursue. One creative idea was put forth by employees Sean James and Todd Rawlings, who proposed building an underwater datacenter powered by renewable ocean energy that would provide super-fast cloud services to crowded coastal populations.<\/p>\n

Their idea appealed to Norm Whitaker, who led special projects for Microsoft Research at the time.<\/p>\n

Out of this, Project Natick<\/a> was born.<\/p>\n

\"Mike
Shepperd (right) and Samuel Ogden test the underwater datacenter from the power substation where the datacenter connects to land, just off the coast of the Orkney Islands. (Photo by Scott Eklund | Red Box Pictures)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNorm\u2019s team was responsible for making the impossible possible, so he started exploring the viability of an underwater datacenter that could be powered by renewable energy,\u201d says Mike Shepperd, a senior research and development engineer on the Microsoft Research team who was brought on to support research on the feasibility of underwater datacenters.<\/p>\n

It quickly became a Microsoft-wide effort that spanned engineering, research, and IT.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the potential benefit to the industry and Microsoft,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cPeople responded to our work as if we were going to the moon. In our eyes, we were just fulfilling our charter\u2014taking on challenging problems and coming up with solutions.”<\/p>\n

Researchers on the project hypothesized that having a sealed container on the ocean floor with a low-humidity nitrogen environment and cold, stable temperatures would better protect the servers and increase reliability.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you\u2019re down 20 to 30 meters into the water, you\u2019re out of the weather,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cYou could have a hurricane raging above you, and an underwater datacenter will be none the wiser.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internal engineering team steps up<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Project Natick team partnered with networking and security teams in Microsoft Digital and Arista to create a secure wide-area network (WAN) connection from the underwater datacenter to the corporate network.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed the connectivity that they provided to finish off our project in the right way,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cWe also needed that connectivity to support the actual decommissioning process, which was very challenging because we had deployed the datacenter in such a remote location.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the spring of 2018, they deployed a fully connected and secure datacenter 117 feet below sea level in the Orkney Islands, just off the coast of Scotland. After it was designed, set up, and gently lowered onto the seabed, the goal was to leave it untouched for two years. Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer in Microsoft Digital, supported these efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Chakri
Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer at Microsoft Digital, and his team came up with a network redesign to extend the network connectivity of the underwater datacenter. (Photo submitted by Chakri Thammineni | Inside Track)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cProject Natick was my first engagement after I joined Microsoft, and it was a great opportunity to collaborate with many folks to come up with a network solution,\u201d Thammineni says.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the experiment concluded without interruption. And yes, the team learned that placing a datacenter underwater is indeed a more sustainable and efficient way to bring the cloud to coastal areas, providing better datacenter responsiveness.<\/p>\n

With the experiment ending, the team needed to recover the datacenter so it could analyze all the data collected during its time underwater.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Microsoft\u2019s internal engineering teams came in.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo make sure we didn\u2019t lose any data, we needed to keep the datacenter connected to Microsoft\u2019s corporate network during our extraction,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cWe accomplished this with a leased line dedicated to our use, one that we used to connect the datacenter with our Microsoft facility in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

The extraction also had to be timed just right for the same reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seas in Orkney throw up waves that can be as much as 9 to 10 meters high for most of the year,\u201d he says. \u201cThe team chose this location because of the extreme conditions, reasoning it was a good place to demonstrate the ability to deploy Natick datacenters just about anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, like it has for so many other projects, COVID-19 forced the team to change its plans. In the process of coming up with a new datacenter recovery plan, the team realized that the corporate connectivity was being shut down at the end of May 2020 and couldn\u2019t be extended.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrdering the gear would\u2019ve taken two to three months, and we were on a much shorter timeline,\u201d Chaparala says.<\/p>\n

Shepperd called on the team in Platform Engineering, a division of Microsoft Digital, to quickly remodel the corporate connectivity from the Microsoft London facility to the Natick shore area, all while ensuring that the connection was secured.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mission?<\/p>\n

Ensure that servers were online until the datacenter could be retrieved from the water, all without additional hardware.<\/p>\n

\"Lathish
Lathish Kumar Chaparala, a senior program manager on the networking team in Microsoft Digital, helped extend network connectivity of Microsoft\u2019s underwater datacenter so it could be safely retrieved from the sea. (Photo submitted by Lathish Kumar Chaparala | Inside Track)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy role was to make sure I understood the criticality of the request in terms of timeline, and to pull in the teams and expertise needed to keep the datacenter online until it was safely pulled out of the water,\u201d Chaparala says.<\/p>\n

The stakes were high, especially with the research that was on the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we lost connectivity and shut down the datacenter, it could have compromised the viability of the research we had done up until that point,\u201d Shepperd says.<\/p>\n

A seamless collaboration across Microsoft Research and IT<\/strong><\/p>\n

To solve this problem, the teams in Core Platform Engineering and Microsoft Research had to align their vision and workflows.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeams in IT might plan their work out for months or years in advance,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cOur research is on a different timeline because we don\u2019t know where technology will take us, so we needed to work together, and fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because they couldn\u2019t bring any hardware to the datacenter site, Chaparala, Thammineni, and the Microsoft Research team needed to come up with a network redesign. This led to the implementation of software-based encryption using a virtual network operating system on Windows virtual machines.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s exciting to play a role in bringing the right engineers and program managers together for a common goal, especially so quickly. Once we had the right team, we knew there was nothing we couldn\u2019t handle.<\/p>\n

– Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer in Microsoft Digital<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With this solution in tow, the team could extend the network connectivity from the Microsoft Docklands facility in London to the Natick datacenter off the coast of Scotland.<\/p>\n

\u201cChakri and Lathish have consistently engaged with us to fill the gaps between what our research team knew and what these networking experts at Microsoft needed in order to take action on the needs of this project,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cWithout help from their teams, we would not have been able to deliver on our research goals as quickly and efficiently as we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lessons learned from the world\u2019s second underwater datacenter<\/strong><\/p>\n

The research on Project Natick pays dividends in Microsoft\u2019s future work<\/a>, particularly around running more sustainable datacenters that could power Microsoft Azure cloud services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether a datacenter is on land or in water, the size and scale of Project Natick is a viable blueprint for datacenters of the future,\u201d Shepperd says. \u201cInstead of putting down acres of land for datacenters, our customers and competitors are all looking for ways to power their compute and to house storage in a more sustainable way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This experience taught Chaparala to assess the needs of his partner teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with customers to understand their requirements and come up with objectives and key results that align,\u201d Chaparala says.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Project Natick\u2019s story is one of cross-disciplinary collaboration \u2013 and just in the nick of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to play a role in bringing the right engineers and program managers together for a common goal, especially so quickly,\u201d Chaparala says. \u201cOnce we had the right team, we knew there was nothing we couldn\u2019t handle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Related<\/p>\n