Microsoft’s data-centre footprint is expanding rapidly to meet the growing global demand for compute and storage. Our team is exploring the potential of automation and robotics to enhance the sustainability, efficiency, and reliability of the data center operations.

The team is comprised of experts in mechanical design, electronics, computer systems, machine learning and robotics, who work together to turn our ideas into reality. We don’t just brainstorm solutions – we bring them to life! Thanks to our state-of-the-art prototyping workshops, we are able to quickly and effectively test and implement our ideas, making a real impact on the world. By leveraging our diverse skill sets and cutting-edge technology, we co-design the hardware and software and create innovative solutions in the area of data center robotics.

Our latest project involved developing a library system for Project Silica. This project consists of a mesh network of autonomous robots designed to quickly and reliably handle and transfer glass media between systems responsible for reading, storing, and writing data. This innovation will enable customers to store long-term information, such as digital movie sources, for thousands of years. The Silica technology has been designed and built from the media up for long-term, sustainable storage. Our challenge was to create a storage system that was reliable, cost-effective, and adaptable to changing workloads over time. The Silica library has been designed based on the following core principles:

• Sustainability. With passive shelving, the physical infrastructure requires minimal maintenance over the lifetime of the media, as generations of robots, readers, and writers continue to evolve.
• Availability. By limiting the impact of a failed robot, the design ensures high availability throughout the system, making the Silica library a reliable and resilient solution.
• Flexibility. With every media accessible by multiple robots, the system can adapt quickly and easily to changing workloads, further ensuring high availability in the event of robot failures.
• Scalability. The system’s aggregate throughput, storage capacity, and number of robots can all be scaled independently to meet the changing demands of the workload, making Silica a future-proof technology.
• Simplicity. The robot motion is achieved using a minimal number of inexpensive components, resulting in a reliable, easy-to-service, and cost-efficient solution without sacrificing performance.

Our team is now exploring the potential benefits of automation for deployment and maintenance tasks in the data center. If you would like to learn more about our ongoing projects in this area, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Gallery

Check out some of our cool robotics: