Microsoft Azure connects directly to the SpaceX Starlink satellites. One of Microsoft’s core businesses is cloud and data storage through its Microsoft Azure service. This requires huge data centers capable of storing and offering all the information required by customers. However, they don’t always have to be huge. The new data center they have developed is portable and does not require connection cables, it is capable of doing it thanks to the satellites connected to SpaceX’s Starlink.
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Microsoft Azure will be provided with a global wireless connection thanks to SpaceX Starlink
Microsoft Azure connects directly to the SpaceX Starlink satellites. Microsoft’s new data center is about the size of a truck trailer. Yes, it’s relatively small considering that data centers typically occupy entire buildings. It contains multiple servers that store information they receive from or send to the Internet network. Its small size and the fact that it is modular makes it much more versatile in its use.
The idea behind this datacenter is to be able to use it in hard to reach places where normally a reliable and fast connection to the cloud cannot be provided. In places where Microsoft wants to place its modular and portable data center, a connection cable cannot always reach (that’s why they call it portable). Instead, Microsoft relies directly on a wireless and satellite connection. Microsoft is partnering with satellite operators for connectivity, allowing this modular Azure data center to be used as a mobile center. Who promises more than anyone else on the satellite Internet right now? Indeed, Starlink from SpaceX.
Microsoft Azure connects directly to the SpaceX Starlink satellites. One of Microsoft’s main partners for this new project is Elon Musk’s SpaceX. With already more than 700 satellites in orbit, Starlink promises high-speed, global Internet connection. The portable data center will be connected to Starlink’s SpaceX satellite broadband. In addition, Microsoft and SpaceX plan to connect Starlink and Azure even more in the future.
At the moment neither the data center is done nor does Starlink have all its satellites deployed (or at least enough to cover it globally).
Microsoft Azure connects directly to the SpaceX Starlink satellites. In any case, this is neither the first nor the last experiment of Microsoft Azure with alternative data centers. Just a few weeks ago we saw the results of the experiment they performed to submerge a data center to the bottom of the ocean. After two years underwater they brought it to the surface and say that it fails only one eighth as compared to a normal one.
