Amazon’s Data Center Container "Perdix" something we haven’t seen

Yesterday I went to Amazon’s Technology Open House.

Here is a 1/4 of the crowd getting food and drinks early before James Hamilton’s keynote.

In James’s presentation he has a section on Modular & Advanced Building Designs

Every day, Amazon Web Services adds enough new capacity to support all of Amazon.com’s global infrastructure through the company’s first 5 years, when it was $2.7 billion annual revenue.

James presents his latest observations on data center costs.

And waste in mechanical systems.

But, here is something I didn’t expect.  Amazon Perdix.  Amazon’s version of modular pre-fab data container data center.  The below picture has Microsoft’s design on the left and Amazon’s on the right.

James is a believer in low density, 30 servers per rack where the cost per server is $1,450 or less.

Schneider's Modular Data Center Infrastructure, discussed the Emerging Market scenario and Tax impact

Schneider Electric's Neil Rasmussen gave a Keynote talk at Uptime.

Six Reasons Why Modular Power and Cooling Plants Will Make Traditional Data Center Designs Obsolete
Neil Rasmussen
Senior Vice President of Innovation, IT Business, Schneider Electric

The press release is here.

Schneider Electric Advances Data Centers With New Modular Power and Cooling Facility Solutions

New Facility Modules Offer 500kW of Power & Cooling in Four Parking Spots -- 10-20% Less Capital Than Traditional Methods

For more technical details you can check out this pdf.

After Neil's keynote I got a chance to chat with him in more detail.  Two issues I brought up is most people are thinking only in their existing data center space, and not thinking about how to expand capacity in areas like emerging markets where a modular design could be used vs. traditional construction and the size of 500kW is a good starting point.

The other question I asked is what are tax implications and depreciation schedules for a modular design vs. traditional.  Too many people think of cost and don't understand the way things are expensed.  Even Ken Brill at Uptime said the cost of land is an expense.  Land is not an expense!  Land is not  depreciated as an expense.

Land is classified as a separate category for one major reason - land is not a subject to depreciation or depletion. Land is considered to have an infinite life, which makes it impossible to estimate its depreciation or depletion.

Before I decided in degree in Industrial Engineering, I actually thought about accounting, so I took lots of accounting and business classes in high school which reminds why I look at many data centers from a business perspective in addition to the IT technology.

If you are looking at modular data center construction, think about emerging markets and tax implications, and you may be surprised at what you discover.

UN chooses Microsoft's ITPAC (Container) for African Green Data Center in Nairobi

Microsoft has a press announcement  on the UN choosing ITPAC for its data center in Nairobi, Kenya.

Here is the specific part on the data center - ITPAC.

The ITPAC technology helps increase IT efficiency and reduces costs in a number of ways. It uses outside air for primary cooling, removing the need for mechanical cooling devices, and is based on a modular design that can be used to make the ITPAC modules easy to pre-manufacture, ship and install onsite. In this way, it dramatically reduces the typical datacenter carbon footprint and consumption of materials, such as water, concrete, steel, piping and copper, along with reducing additional carbon usage associated with the packaging and transporting of servers, equipment and supplies. It also provides a plug-and-play infrastructure to enable the rapid deployment and refresh of servers both today and in the future. In terms of efficiency, many traditional datacenters operate with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 2 or higher. Through thoughtful and efficient design, cooling strategies, and site selection, Microsoft has been able to reduce the PUE of its latest datacenters to operate in a range between 1.05 and 1.15. The eventual PUE range for UNEP will depend on the ambient weather conditions, computing capacity and IT services deployed.

Earth2Tech points out that the leading green data center companies - Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo will be at Green:NET 2011 where I'll be as well.

At Green:Net, Microsoft’s Environmental Strategist Rob Bernard will talk about the company’s green data center designs and its connected cities projects. We’ll also be featuring a discussion at Green:Net between Google’s Green Energy Czar Bill Weihl and Yahoo’s Director, Climate and Energy Strategy, Christina Page, about green data center tech, and Greenpeace will release new data on clean power and the cloud.