When Microsoft announced its plan to build an underwater datacenter, Lathish Kumar Chaparala was excited.

“During 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,” 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.

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.

But the story begins much earlier than that.

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—taking on challenging problems and coming up with solutions.

– Mike Shepperd, senior research and development engineer on the Microsoft Research team

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.

Their idea appealed to Norm Whitaker, who led special projects for Microsoft Research at the time.

Out of this, Project Natick was born.

“Norm’s 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,” 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.

It quickly became a Microsoft-wide effort that spanned engineering, research, and IT.

“We saw the potential benefit to the industry and Microsoft,” Shepperd says. “People responded to our work as if we were going to the moon. In our eyes, we were just fulfilling our charter—taking on challenging problems and coming up with solutions.”

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.

“Once you’re down 20 to 30 meters into the water, you’re out of the weather,” Shepperd says. “You could have a hurricane raging above you, and an underwater datacenter will be none the wiser.”

Internal engineering team steps up

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.

“We needed the connectivity that they provided to finish off our project in the right way,” Shepperd says. “We 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.”

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.

“Project 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,” Thammineni says.

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.

With the experiment ending, the team needed to recover the datacenter so it could analyze all the data collected during its time underwater.

That’s where Microsoft’s internal engineering teams came in.

“To make sure we didn’t lose any data, we needed to keep the datacenter connected to Microsoft’s corporate network during our extraction,” Shepperd says. “We accomplished this with a leased line dedicated to our use, one that we used to connect the datacenter with our Microsoft facility in London.”

The extraction also had to be timed just right for the same reasons.

“The seas in Orkney throw up waves that can be as much as 9 to 10 meters high for most of the year,” he says. “The 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.”

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’t be extended.

“Ordering the gear would’ve taken two to three months, and we were on a much shorter timeline,” Chaparala says.

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.

The mission?

Ensure that servers were online until the datacenter could be retrieved from the water, all without additional hardware.

“My 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,” Chaparala says.

The stakes were high, especially with the research that was on the line.

“If we lost connectivity and shut down the datacenter, it could have compromised the viability of the research we had done up until that point,” Shepperd says.

A seamless collaboration across Microsoft Research and IT

To solve this problem, the teams in Core Platform Engineering and Microsoft Research had to align their vision and workflows.

“Teams in IT might plan their work out for months or years in advance,” Shepperd says. “Our research is on a different timeline because we don’t know where technology will take us, so we needed to work together, and fast.”

Because they couldn’t 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.

It’s 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’t handle.

– Chakri Thammineni, a network engineer in Microsoft Digital

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.

“Chakri 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,” Shepperd says. “Without help from their teams, we would not have been able to deliver on our research goals as quickly and efficiently as we did.”

Lessons learned from the world’s second underwater datacenter

The research on Project Natick pays dividends in Microsoft’s future work, particularly around running more sustainable datacenters that could power Microsoft Azure cloud services.

“Whether a datacenter is on land or in water, the size and scale of Project Natick is a viable blueprint for datacenters of the future,” Shepperd says. “Instead 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.”

This experience taught Chaparala to assess the needs of his partner teams.

“We work with customers to understand their requirements and come up with objectives and key results that align,” Chaparala says.

Ultimately, Project Natick’s story is one of cross-disciplinary collaboration – and just in the nick of time.

“It’s exciting to play a role in bringing the right engineers and program managers together for a common goal, especially so quickly,” Chaparala says. “Once we had the right team, we knew there was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

• Watch this video about Microsoft’s findings from Project Natick, the experimental undersea datacenter.

The post How Microsoft kept its underwater datacenter connected while retrieving it from the ocean appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

In episodes of the Security Unlocked podcast, Microsoft CISO Bret Arsenault discusses the biggest challenges in securing your hybrid workspace with industry peers from Microsoft, LinkedIn, Vodafone, and more.

The episodes cover how security leaders are adjusting to the new normal of hybrid work. In each episode, Arsenault and his guest share practical tips and strategies such as using a Zero Trust approach, that enterprises can start using today to make sure employees are productive, secure, and healthy no matter if they’re at the office, at home or anywhere in-between.

Episode 1: Securing the Cloud with Mark Russinovich

To kick off the podcast, Arsenault chats with Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure, about the power of cloud technology and how it’s used to advance technology in the world of remote and hybrid work.

Listen to Episode 1 of Security Unlocked here.

Episode 2: Securing Hybrid Work with Venki Krishnababu

Arsenault sits down with Venki Krishnababu, senior vice president of Global Technology Services at Lululemon, to discuss the tools, practices, and technology to help the company seamlessly shift to remote work at their companies and beyond.

Listen to Episode 2 of Security Unlocked here.

Episode 3: The Human Side of Hybrid Work with Amy Coleman

With over 175,000 employees around the world across 100 countries and regions, Arsenault knows that it’s no small feat to shift to remote work. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Amy Coleman talks with him about the company’s plan to support hybrid work, and how managers can support this transition.

Listen to Episode 3 of Security Unlocked here.

Episode 4: Leading an Inclusive Workforce with Vodafone Global Cybersecurity Director Emma Smith

Teamwork makes the dream work, but so does support from managers, supervisors, and global security directors. Arsenault chats with Emma Smith, Director of Global Cybersecurity for Vodafone, about returning to in-person work after over a year of being remote, and some of the challenges that come with this transition. You’ll leave with key points for security practitioners and tips for securing your hybrid workspace and hybrid workforce.

Listen to Episode 4 of Security Unlocked here.

Episode 5: Building a Stronger Security Team with LinkedIn CISO Geoff Belknap

Arsenault talks with Geoff Belknap, colleague and fellow CISO at LinkedIn, about what it means to build a team, not of experts, but of intrepid thinkers willing to learn something new and invest in themselves to grow. Learn more about how to address the cybersecurity gender gap, the interdisciplinary nature of security, and the importance of investing in your team’s growth.

Listen to Episode 5 of Security Unlocked here.

Episode 6: Developing Influential Security Leaders with TikTok CSO Roland Cloutier

Success can be measured in a lot of different ways, whether it’s productivity, department growth, increased team morale, and more. In the case of TikTok CSO Roland Cloutier, he focuses on how many people under his leadership have eventually worked their way up to become CISOs. In this episode, he shares how the military granted him the discipline to excel in the world of cybersecurity, and the leadership skills to provide opportunities for those around him to find just as much success.

• Listen to Episode 6 of Security Unlocked here.
• Watch this video to learn best practices for implementing Zero Trust at Microsoft.
• Read about how Microsoft is implementing a Zero Trust security model.
• Find out more about how Microsoft secures its network with a Zero Trust model.

The post Microsoft CISO Bret Arsenault provides practical advice to secure your hybrid workspace appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Sphoorti Patil is using Microsoft Azure indoor mapping and IoT technology that helps Microsoft employees find their way around the company’s campuses—and she hasn’t been in a Microsoft building yet.

She’s not alone in this experience—Microsoft has hired a number of new employees since the COVID-19 pandemic started, and most of them started and are continuing to work remotely (as are most of Microsoft’s approximately 190,000 employees globally).

“I went through my whole interview process virtually and never met my colleagues in person,” says Patil, a senior program manager in Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company. “Since employees like me don’t have onboarding buddies to show them around, we’re building software that can be their guide and help them locate things.”

We want to create employee experiences that adapt to meet the needs of this changing workforce. Employees can still build relationships and get coffee, but if they have a quick question, they have the option of using Microsoft Teams or meeting room software to sync and collaborate from anywhere.

—Michael Tiopan, app manager, Global Workplace Services

Flexibility is the name of the game as Microsoft, like other companies, considers when to have its employees start working in physical offices in some form in this new hybrid world of work that is emerging across the planet. To support this hybrid work model, the Global Workplace Services team at Microsoft is partnering with Microsoft Digital to transform the company’s employee experience from the inside out using Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and Microsoft Azure Maps.

Together, they’re designing employee experiences with ease and productivity in mind.

“We want to create employee experiences that adapt to meet the needs of this changing workforce,” says Michael Tiopan, an app manager in Global Workplace Services who works with employees in Microsoft Digital to support workplace management. “Employees can still build relationships and get coffee, but if they have a quick question, they have the option of using Microsoft Teams or meeting room software to sync and collaborate from anywhere.”

For a transcript, please view the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx6BJNMx2bQ.

That’s why it’s vital to rethink the workplace, which, at Microsoft, includes both buildings and the tools the company’s employees use on a day-to-day basis.

“Microsoft wants to improve space and occupancy planning to ensure that we offer our employees flexible experiences using indoor mapping and IoT technology,” Patil says.

This means employees can use kiosks to find offices, supply rooms, or cafés, or to log into a mobile application to do common tasks like submit time off or book focus rooms.

[Learn more about how Microsoft is creating a world-class, integrated experience for every employee. Watch this video to find out how Microsoft is using Azure Digital Twins and Internet of Things technology to optimize employee usage and facilities management of company buildings.]

Tracking real-time data and building visualizations

Tiopan says having most employees work remotely has enabled the company to speed up an already underway transformation of its large global building footprint using indoor mapping and IoT technology.

Having a channel for data ingestion is foundational to building out connected experiences for employees and optimizing space planning.

—Balaji Radhakrishnan, senior software engineer, Space Management team, Microsoft Digital

To understand space usage during the pandemic and beyond, the company accelerated the installation of IoT technology sensors in all its buildings. These sensors use anonymized data to track occupancy, temperatures, and more. This continuous supply of real-time data is ingested, tracked, and used by Microsoft Azure Digital Twins, which uses IoT data to create digital models of physical environments like Microsoft buildings.

“Having a channel for data ingestion is foundational to building out connected experiences for employees and optimizing space planning,” says Balaji Radhakrishnan, a senior software engineer on Microsoft Digital’s Space Management team.

“One of the biggest challenges to digital transformation is that data usually exists in siloes,” Patil says, “The IoT sensor data, which captures insights about current occupancy and building conditions, is funneled to Azure Digital Twins, which informs space planning at Microsoft.”

Radhakrishnan and Patil’s teams use Microsoft Azure Maps to transform computer-aided design (CAD) drawings into digital visualizations of rooms, hallways, and buildings, which are added into the digital replica created in Microsoft Azure Digital Twins.

This information is then displayed on kiosks that have a map of campus buildings. At Microsoft, this information is shown to employees as an interactive map that’s available through the company’s MyHub app and digital kiosks in Microsoft buildings. Available spaces are shown as green, which makes it easy for employees to find an open spot.

Tiopan says that Microsoft employees can reference this data to track usage and capacity, which enables real estate experts in Global Workplace Services to have proactive conversations with Microsoft leadership about occupancy planning, space utilization, and flexible hybrid workspaces based on activity patterns in the space usage data. Additionally, the data is useful in planning employee services and building maintenance.

Identify opportunities to leverage real-time data to automate any of your processes, and make sure that you’re addressing a customer need in the process.

—Sphoorti Patil, senior program manager, Microsoft Digital

One key use case is hot desking, which employees can use as a temporary workspace in a Microsoft building if they’re working remotely most of the time. An employee can go into MyHub, the mobile app for employee experiences, and look for available spaces they can reserve for their use. This feature uses space occupancy data that’s fed into Azure Digital Twins, which is used to create digital replicas of campus buildings that are displayed in physical kiosks and the company’s mobile app.

Standardization and optimization

Customers can use Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and Azure Maps to create real-time visualizations of physical spaces ranging from an employee office to a retail store. Before investing in building out the infrastructure to support IoT technology sensors, Patil suggests assessing your digital maturity by tracking what percentage of your business has manual versus automated processes.

“Identify opportunities to leverage real-time data to automate any of your processes, and make sure that you’re addressing a customer need in the process,” Patil says.

From there, ensure that you have a continuous supply of data that can be ingested by Microsoft Azure Digital Twins, as this is the foundation for digital transformation.

“Evaluate what technical infrastructure you need to support the real-time ingestion of data,” Patil says. “Once you have that, you can create virtual representations of physical buildings or simulations of supply chain management.”

The most important consideration is to assess what your end users want and build IoT technology solutions with those scenarios in mind.

“Focus on the needs of your end users before thinking about how to use IoT technology and Azure Digital Twins for space management and smart building services,” Patil says.

• Check out how Microsoft Azure Maps, Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and IoT technology sensors combine to provide real-time occupancy data and visualizations that are powerful planning tools for companies navigating the new hybrid workplace.
• Use Microsoft Azure Maps to create web and mobile applications that are powered by real-time location intelligence.
• Use research about your customers or end users to identify the IoT technology solutions you want to develop.
• Envisioning your end-to-end scenario can help companies create an architecture that provides a continuous supply of data that can be ingested by Microsoft Azure Digital Twins, which can be leveraged to power real-time indoor mapping experiences.

• Learn more about how Microsoft is creating a world-class, integrated experience for every employee.
• Watch this video to find out how Microsoft is using Azure Digital Twins and Internet of Things technology to optimize employee usage and facilities management of company buildings.

The post Transforming Microsoft buildings with IoT technology and indoor mapping appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Prioritizing accessibility at Microsoft is helping the company create products and services that are inclusive and accessible for everyone.

Being successful at this important work hinges on getting feedback from people with disabilities ranging from mobility and cognitive disabilities to temporary disabilities due to an injury or short-term condition.

Joanna Briggs, a senior technical program manager in Microsoft Digital, says that creating inclusive experiences starts with creating products and services for Microsoft employees, who are often the first and best customers at the company.

“We’re trying to innovate and provide our employees and customers with the best user experiences,” says Briggs, who works with partner teams in Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company, to ensure that internal applications and services meet accessibility standards and guidelines. “To do that, we have to take into account the lived experiences of every employee, regardless of ability.”

This was the approach that Briggs, Faris Mango (a software engineering manager in Microsoft Digital), and their teams used to improve the portal that Microsoft guests can use to register their devices and connect to the internet when they visit one of the company’s buildings.

“We didn’t want to just guess what certain employees would want or face,” Mango says. “Instead, we wanted to have our employees use the portal so we could get feedback straight from them.”

This is why Briggs set up inclusive usability studies to get feedback from people with disabilities, where she would observe them going through a series of tasks using the portal. To do this, she worked with employees who volunteered to share their lived experience and test out the portal. Their lived experience and feedback were vital to building out this technology and ensuring that it is usable for employees and customers with a range of lived experiences.

In the research findings, Briggs summarized that some participants wanted more consistency around the semantics of the color palette in the user interface and simpler language that wasn’t specific to software engineers. Others advocated for a version of the user guide video with American Sign Language (ASL).

“All of the feedback made sense to me,” Mango says, explaining Microsoft Digital’s accessibility team made it easy for him to find and hire an ASL interpreter. “We were able to quickly record a version of the video with an ASL interpreter, and that made a huge impact.”

Ensure that you’re getting feedback from customers outside of your own team, discipline, or organization. Bring in a diverse user base from the beginning, and really listen to what they need.

—Joanna Briggs, senior technical program manager, Microsoft Digital

Conducting the inclusive usability studies with people with disabilities has also reinforced the importance of creating intuitive user experiences. What’s more important is that these learnings have shifted the mindset of his team. Mango also worked with Briggs to apply principles of Microsoft’s inclusive design methodology to the technology and tools they’re developing. One of the core principles is “solve for one, extend to many.” In other words, technology created with people with disabilities in mind, like video captions or a push bar on a door, can benefit people in a range of situations and ability levels.

“We’re taking the lessons we learned in the inclusive usability studies, applying them when developing new products and services, and prioritizing accessibility at Microsoft,” Mango says.

For teams that want to take a page out of Mango and Briggs’ book by prioritizing accessibility, it’s important to think about inclusion from the beginning of the product-making process.

“Ensure that you’re getting feedback from customers outside of your own team, discipline, or organization,” Briggs says. “Bring in a diverse user base from the beginning, and really listen to what they need.”

You can even leverage free tools, like a plug-in for accessibility insights that can be added to any webpage, or do your own research.

This conversation is especially important as companies continue to embrace remote and hybrid work, and ensure that every employee is invited to participate regardless of where they’re working or what technology they’re using.

“Put yourself in customers’ shoes and get feedback from them directly about what they need,” Mango says. “This gives you a better sense of what to invest in.”

• Think about inclusion and accessibility from the beginning of the product-making process.
• Get feedback from folks outside of your own team, discipline, or collaborators.
• Run usability tests with people who have a range of disabilities.

• Find out how building inclusive, accessible experiences at Microsoft is a catalyst for digital transformation.
• Read about how Microsoft is enabling remote work with Zero Trust networking, Microsoft Teams meetings, and employee engagement.
• Watch this video about how to design Microsoft products and services with accessibility in mind.

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The post Prioritizing accessibility at Microsoft with feedback from people with disabilities appeared first on Inside Track Blog.