Microsoft’s Green beats Container Data Center for Media coverage

September 30, 2009 Dave Ohara

I’ve been trading some email with other data center people and they are disappointed that the Microsoft Dublin Green Data Center is getting better coverage than Microsoft’s Container Data Center.

Why? Two main points.

1) I would say the media team did a better job of having content for the European press in Dublin, than the US press for Containers. See the EMEA web site http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/pressreleases/DublinDataCentrePR_240909.mspx I can’t find anything on the US site for Containers.

2) Also, having two data center press events back to back almost guaranteed the second one will get less coverage.

Here is Rich Miller’s Container Data Center coverage.

Microsoft Unveils Its Container-Powered Cloud
September 30th, 2009 : Rich Miller

A look at one of the double-decker data center containers housed at the massive new Microsoft data center near Chicago. The facility includes both raised-floor space and plug-n-play bays for containers packed with servers.

As the bay door opens at Microsoft’s enormous new Chicago data center, the future backs in on a trailer. Forty-foot long containers packed with servers are unloaded with winches, and stacked two-high onto “air skates” that float on compressed air. Using the air skates, as few as four employees can move the 60-ton stack into place in Microsoft’s “container canyon” in the lower floor of the facility in Northlake, Ill.

Rich has two entries on Dublin.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/09/24/microsofts-chiller-less-data-center/

Microsoft’s Chiller-less Data Center
September 24th, 2009 : Rich Miller

An aerial view showing rooftop air handlers at Microsoft's Dublin data center, which opens today. (Image: Microsoft Corp.)

Microsoft has joined Google on the new frontier of energy efficiency – the chiller-less data center. Microsoft today announced that its huge facility in Dublin, Ireland is running without any chillers. Outside air is drawn into the facility to cool the thousands of servers powering the company’s “Live” suite of online services for users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/09/28/gallery-microsofts-dublin-data-center/

Gallery: Microsoft’s Dublin Data Center
September 28th, 2009 : Rich Miller

The exterior of the new energy-efficient Microsoft data center in Dublin, Ireland.

Microsoft’s new data center in Dublin will power much of the company’s global cloud computing operation, while using far less energy and water than typically consumed in other data centers of this scale. We’ve put together a photo gallery offers a closer look at the design innovations driving its efficiency, including photos of the server room and data center interior and a diagram of the free cooling system. See our photo feature,Inside Microsoft’s Dublin Mega Data Center.

News.com has nice picture and a promise for more.

Microsoft's Chicago data center offers a merge of old and new techniques. The ground floor features sealed containers with tightly packed racks of servers, while the second floor houses more traditional server rooms.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Mike Manos Expands His Role, Again – Repeats an Organizational Pattern

September 5, 2009 Dave Ohara

Mike changes so often here is the latest on his job change.

Talking to a few friends we were discussing Mike Manos's running Digital Realty Trust's POD development. The conversations was, “Oh did you hear. He got more. He did??? What? Mike got Operations, Operation Engineering, and Future Innovation with Jim Smith the CTO. Hey doesn't this look like the way Mike organized his group at Microsoft? Yes it does. And, now he reports to the CEO.”

As we look to the challenges ahead we are faced with the kinds of problems all companies wish they had. We are challenged by an increased amount of customer demand for capacity coupled with a desire for the most technologically advanced facilities in the market today. Additionally new offerings such as Pod Architecture Services is giving us visibility and penetration into opportunities that historically we could not be a part of. This considerable growth is combined with an increasing amount of complexity in managing a world-wide facility portfolio of tens of facilities with power capacity that is measured in the hundreds of megawatts!

Mike has used his organizational skills to pull a team together that rivals will have a hard to match. Why? Because Mike can perform data center organizational magic, and people like to work for him.

You may not have thought as Digital Realty Trust as a construction company, and they aren't a typical construction management solution. They are out to drive a change in the data center industry by looking at the TCO to provide data center services. This may not be as sexy as watching Apple and Google data center moves, but it is going to drive significant changes.

One of the changes coming through the industry is combination of IT with Facilities/Real Estate in Site Selection, Design, and Construction of Data Centers. There are data center rules ready to be broken as others figure out how much these rules limit and increase data center costs. We are about to see data centers built in totally different ways in places you would not typically consider. In this recession, there are huge opportunities for those who can see a different way of business to take advantage of the economic incentives by federal, state, and local gov’t.

Here is a tough question I haven’t seen many people ask. We have these long list of site selection and design criteria, how do each of these criteria affect the TCO of our data center? If we are going to have a lower TCO shouldn’t we question the requirements and understand how much it costs.

You mean I could lower my TCO by changing the requirements? Well, yeh. Don’t you think that is easier to do, than adopting the latest technology with the hope of a high ROI.

There are a few who are thinking this way, and it is fun discussing how data center costs could be dramatically lower than the competition. You know Google thinks this way, but we usually have to wait 3 years before they share their ideas.

I think Mike sees the way things are shifting, and has a vision which is why he has acted so quickly at Digital Realty Trust.

Are you ready?

Mike Manos Comments on Changing Data Center Construction

August 16, 2009 Dave Ohara

I wrote my post on the issues with change and the green the data center on Aug 16.

Aug 16, 2009

#1 Challenge to Green The Data Center, Resistance to Change

I’ve been slow blogging this week as I have been making some changes in my business relationships and it has required a lot of my time. I guess I was in a mood for change as Olivier Sanche announced his big change going to Apple. My change isn’t even close to being newsworthy, but it effects who I work with, and it was time to change.

I just read a blogger Hugh MacLeod post and have his book.

Turns out Mike Manos wrote his post on changing data center construction on Aug 14.

Changing An Industry of Cottage Industries

August 14, 2009 by mmanos

If you happen to be following the news around Digital Realty Trust you may have seen the recent announcement of our Pod Architecture Services (PAS) offering. Although the response has been deafening there seems to be a lot of questions and confusion around what it is, what it is not, and what this ultimately means for Digital Realty Trust and our place in the industry.

Mike starts with a good description of the state of data center construction industry.

First a simple observation – the Data Center Industry as it stands today is in actuality an industry of cottage industries. Its an industry dominated by boutique firms in specialized niches all in support of the building out of these large technically complex facilities. For the initiated its a world full of religious arguments like battery versus rotary, air-side economization versus water-side economization, raised floor versus no raised floor. To the uninitiated its an industry categorized by mysterious wizards of calculus and fluid dynamics and magical electrical energies. Its an illusion the wizards of the collective cottage industries are well paid and incented to keep up. They ply their trade in ensuring that each facility’s creation is a one-off event, and likewise, so is the next one. Its a world of competing General Contractors, architecture firms, competing electrical and mechanical firms, of specialists in all sizes, shapes and colors. Ultimately – in my mind there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Everyone has the right to earn a buck no matter how inefficient the process.

And, Mike points to a key flaws in data center design methodology.

Many designs like to optimize around the technology, or around the upfront facility costs, or drive significant complexity in design to ensure that every possible corner case is covered in the facility. But the fact is if you cut corners up front, you potentially pay for it over the life of the asset, if you look for the most technologically advanced gear or provide for lots of levers, knobs, and buttons for the ultimate flexibility you open yourself up for more human error or drive more costs in the ongoing operation of the facility. The owners perspective is incredibly important. Many times companies allow these decisions to be made by their partner firms (the cottage industries) and this view gets clouded. Given the complexity of these buildings and the fact that they are not built often by the customers in the first time its hard to maintain that owners perspective without dedicated and vigilant attention. PAS changes all that as the designs have already been optimized and companies can simply purchase the product they most desire with the guarantee of what they receive on the other end of the process, is what they expected.

If you read Mike’s whole post he explains how Digital Realty Trust’s POD Architecture Services addresses the flaws.

Mike started his post concerned with the confusion from the industry. The below from my post can help explain.

If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they're going to resist your idea every chance they can.

Again, that's human nature.

GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS, THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.

Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.

When I read the announcement of POD Architecture Services, it was clear to me what Digital Realty Trust was trying to do, but I am ready for a change. The market confusion is caused be resistant to change.

Data Center Site Selection - Are you building an Information Fortress or a Flexible Information Factory?

August 6, 2009 Dave Ohara

Mike Manos writes a long post on his blog driven by Microsoft’s recent decision to move Windows Azure out of Washington State.

The Cloud Politic – How Regulation, Taxes, and National Borders are shaping the infrastructure of the cloud

August 6, 2009 by mmanos

Most people think of ‘the cloud’ as a technical place defined by technology, the innovation of software leveraged across a scale of immense proportions and ultimately a belief that its decisions are guided by some kind of altruistic technical meritocracy. At some levels that is true on others one needs to remember that the ‘cloud’ is ultimately a business. Whether you are talking about the Google cloud, the Microsoft cloud, Amazon Cloud, or Tom and Harry’s Cloud Emporium, each is a business that ultimately wants to make money. It never ceases to amaze me that in a perfectly solid technical or business conversation around the cloud people will begin to wax romantic and lose sight of common sense. These are very smart technical or business savvy people but for some reason the concept of the cloud has been romanticized into something almost philosophical, a belief system, something that actually takes on the wispy characteristics that the term actually conjures up.

When you try to bring them down to the reality the cloud is essentially large industrial buildings full of computers, running applications that have achieved regional or even global geo-diversity and redundancy you place yourself in a tricky place that at best labels you a kill-joy and at worst a Blasphemer.

I have been reminded of late of a topic that I have been meaning to write about. As defined by my introduction above, some may find it profane, others will choose to ignore it as it will cause them to come crashing to the ground. I am talking about the unseemly and terribly disjointed intersection of Government regulation, Taxes, and the Cloud. This also loops in “the privacy debate” which is a separate conversation almost all to itself. I hope to touch on privacy but only as it touches these other aspects.

Mike ends his post with a blasphemy.

Ultimately the large cloud providers should care less and less about the data centers they live in. These will be software layer attributes to program against. Business level modifiers on code distribution. Data Centers should be immaterial components for the Cloud providers. Nothing more than containers or folders in which to drop their operational code. Today they are burning through tremendous amounts of capital believing that these facilities will ultimately give them strategic advantage. Ultimately these advantages will be fleeting and short-lived. They will soon find themselves in a place where these facilities themselves will become a drag on their balance sheets or cause them to invest more in these aging assets.

Please don’t get me wrong, the cloud providers have been instrumental in pushing this lethargic industry into thinking differently and evolving. For that you need give them appropriate accolades. At some point however, this is bound to turn into a losing proposition for them.

How’s that for Blasphemy?

\Mm

Most will ignore or be unable to react to Mike’s points as they are building their data centers as if they are fortresses. The mistake in building a fortress is the buildings don’t adapt easily to changes in social, political and technology environment.

Mike makes this point regarding Canada law.

So far we have looked at this mostly from a taxation perspective. But there are other regulatory forces in play. I will use the example of Canada. The friendly frosty neighbors to the great white north of the United States. Its safe to say that Canada and US have had historically wonderful relations with one another. However when one looks through the ‘Cloud’ colored looking glass there are some things that jump out to the fore.

In response to the Patriot Act legislation after 9-11, the Canadian government became concerned with the rights given to the US government with regards to the seizure of online information. They in turn passed a series of Safe-Harbor-like laws that stated that no personally identifiable information of Canadian citizens could be housed outside of the Canadian borders. Other countries have done, or are in process with similar laws. This means that at least some aspects of the cloud will need to be anchored regionally or within specific countries. A boat can drift even if its anchored and so must components of the cloud, its infrastructure and design will need to accommodate for this. This touches on the privacy issue I talked about before. I don’t want to get into the more esoteric conversations of Information and where its allowed to live and not live, I try to stay grounded in the fact that whether my romantic friends like it or not, this type of thing is going to happen and the cloud will need to adapt.

I agree totally with Mike’s points on the site selection, but this can be adapted to if you change the type of data center you are building. The smart data center builders are adapting their designs to leverage site characteristics and increase flexibility. Google has patented floating data centers. Microsoft has container data centers. Mobility changes the game.

How adaptable is your data center infrastructure? An adaptable infrastructure is a competitive advantage.

Mike Manos Starts his Own Business at Digital Realty, Building Data Centers to Own vs. Rent

August 2, 2009 Dave Ohara

DataCenterDynamics had news about Digital Realty Trust’s Mike Manos new Data Center Services.

DRT licences POD design packages

Data center owner operators can tap into Architecture Services led by Mike Manos

(8/3/2009)

Wholesaler Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR) announced POD architecture services for firm wishing to retain ownership of facilities.
The comany is opening up its design packages including design engineering guidelines, its ‘gating process’ which gives a series of sign-offs and checks during the buildling process and opening up its supply chain to offer firms lower component prices through established partnerships.

Michael Manos, who recently joined Digital Realty Trust as Senior Vice President of Technical Services, said: "These services fill a gap in the market between a pure do-it-yourself approach and leasing wholesale space from an outsourced provider such as Digital Realty Trust. Many companies want to own their own data center, but they do not have the internal skill set and experience to successfully tackle a construction project with the scope and complexity of a major data center facility. By using Digital Realty Trust's POD Architecture Services(SM), those companies can retain ownership of the facility and the process, while dramatically reducing the risks, costs and timeline by working with a team that has built hundreds of datacenters around the world."

"This is a natural extension of our business because it offers our expertise to a segment of the market that wants to own their datacenter but that needs an expert to help them build it. They are looking for someone to take responsibility for the process of building and delivering the completed project," said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President at Digital Realty Trust. "By using our POD Architecture Services(SM), customers can utilize everything from our blueprints to our relationships with vendors - as well as the expertise that Mike Manos brings to the process. The savings in hard costs alone can total in the tens of millions of dollars."

The official press release is here.

-- Benefit from Digital Realty Trust's award-winning green datacenter and energy efficiency program and expertise.

It’s nice to see Mike’s team emphasized the green data center capabilities.