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Underwater Datacenters Might Make for Some Tricky Auditor Walkthroughs

Posted on by Megan Lewczyk

Who says we can’t mix electricity and water? Dangerous… sure. But, hey, why not?

Microsoft is currently testing an underwater data center and it’s kind of genius. It’s in the “why didn’t I think of that” category. Dubbed Project Natick, this cutting-edge innovation is vying to create an out-of-the-box subsea datacenter that can get dropped in the ocean off the coast where you live and be ready to rock and roll. I admit, I am intrigued.

Wait, what if it leaks?

I guess it’s not a huge concern for developers. Thinking of the datacenter like a satellite, they have designed it to be able to withstand an underwater environment. And, if it leaks, the company will just need to run off of its backup…

Now that I am thinking about it, a traditional datacenter has fires and floods to contend with too; and, I doubt as much thought goes into setting up the fire suppression system at a run-of-the-mill datacenter compared to the attention developers have given to the “anti-leak” mechanism on the Project Natick pods.

What’s wrong with a traditional datacenter?

A noisy, jungle of wires that is heavily reliant on air conditioning to keep from overheating…. that’s what. With a subsea datacenter (equipped with a cooling system on outside), cooling is less expensive.

A big disadvantage of a traditional datacenter is that it is usually a big, ugly warehouse in the middle of nowhere. With an underwater alternative, companies would be able to plunk a datacenter closer to their headquarters. Many of the world’s most dense populations exist along the coasts and many countries could benefit from using ocean real estate rather than wasting habitable space with a nondescript datacenter monstrosity.

Microsoft’s project manager, Ben Cutler shared that:

As we [Microsoft] started exploring the space, it started to make more and more sense. We had a mind-bending challenge, but also a chance to push boundaries.

Alright… am I just going to run an extension cord out there?

Obviously… No. I don’t want to get fried and neither does Nemo. Submarine developers seem to have figured it out a long time ago, so it can’t be that hard. In fact, the ocean could provide an awesome renewable energy source (think offshore wind, wave, tide, or current energy according to the Project Natrik homepage).
 

And, of course, the most pressing question… how do we, as auditors, do a datacenter walkthrough?

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I will leave you with that to ponder. Scuba lessons for staff? I have a feeling we will see more in this space in the next couple of years.
 

Image: iStock/somchaij

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An Argument for Techie Accountants

My one piece of advice for the next generation of accountants right now is, enroll in some Computer Science courses. Learn to code. Learn how to manage a small server farm. Learn APIs, SQL, HTML5, JAVA, etc.

Drop that Poli-sci course right now.

Technicalntant’s best friend nowadays. It should be self-evident as to why. Data. Data. Data.

My first accounting gig was in a tax firm. We had an old mainframe crunching numbers and all the programming was in COBOL. In industry, reports would have all been generating output as text files; but who cares, there’s no ‘export to file’ function anyways.


Actually, that’s a good test. If you want to know whether your current software vendor is investing in the future of their product, look at the file output from your reports. If they come out as text files (you open Excel and each line of output is just one cell), this means the reporting architecture is really, really old.

It’s kind of like when you and your friends one-time go for an afternoon horseback ride. Inevitably, one person gets plunked on the beatest, tired old nag you ever seen. Yeah, technically she still rides but she ain’t even long in the tooth. All the teeth, they fell out.

Consider it the carbon dating of your accounting system.

You see, just because there has been consolidation in the ownership of companies in the enterprise software space does not mean the units have consolidated their products. Most units (purchased or raised) continue to operate independently. Revenues are generated from new sales obviously; but equally important, from a big, juicy installed base of maintenance contracts within the business units. You know that. And it’s fine. The amount of new investment in the product however, would be a corporate management decision from head office. Some products are the equivalent of that tired old nag.

Back to the point on technical skills though. Unlike back in the day, technology is no longer just auxiliary to what we do. It’s central and 100% pervasive. A commenter last week summed it up really well when I talked about the accounting tools:

“Three letters for you bitches, S to the Q to the mofo L.”

Getting a bit more techie will help you appreciate the humor in this quote. It’ll also help you recognize the tired old nag before you saddle up and ride.

In practice, normally we’re simply subject to whatever system happens to be installed. You deal with it, right? And that’s fine too. Recognition goes hand in hand with acceptance.

The reports kick out to Excel in text files; you find the delimiters, execute a ‘text-to-columns’ command, split up what you can and do your reporting. In the past, I’ve also had to occasionally create an Excel formula for pulling out text that’s really buried using the LEFT, RIGHT, functions. Then, I write a macro to automate as much as possible. Poor tired old nag.

Technology and data are just like riding a horse. With the correct instruction, you can get the horse to do what you want. But you’ll always be limited by what the horse is physically able to do.

If you don’t know anything about horses, this analogy might not make much sense at all. Which, I would say, just proves my initial point. Learn your technical skills now while you’re still in school. Leave all the fluffy horsebackriding and philosophy courses to the guys who’ll be serving you coffee after graduation.

In my view, technology skills are just as important for accountants as debits and credits. You may or may not like it, but it’s time to see how the dog food is made.

Enjoy.

Old farm adage: “If you’re going to have livestock,… you’re going to have deadstock.”

Geoff Devereux as been active in Vancouver’s technology start-up community for the past 5 years. Prior to getting lured into tech start-ups, Geoff worked in various fields including a 5 year stint in a tax accounting firm. You can see more of his posts for GC here.