Obsolescence of Microsoft's Container Data Center, Nakagin Capsule Tower

May 11, 2008 Dave Ohara

Kisho Kurokawa was a leading Japanese Architect, Famous for the Nakagin Capsule Tower. There are many concepts Kurokawa used in the Capsule Tower that parallel Microsoft's Container Data Center.

The Nakagin Capsule Tower' (中銀カプセルタワー, Nakagin Kapuseru Tawā^?) is a mixed-use residential and office tower designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa and located in Shimbashi, Tokyo, Japan. Completed in 1972, it has thirteen floors which house prefabricated modules (or "capsules") which are each self-contained units.

Construction took place in two separate places: on-site and off-site. On-site construction included the two towers and their energy-supply systems and equipment, while the capsule parts were fabricated and the capsules assembled at a factory.

The capsules were prefabricated and fitted out with utilities and interior fittings before being shipped to the building site, where they were attached to the concrete towers. Each capsule is attached independently and cantilevered from the shaft so that any capsule may be easily removed without affecting the others.

Here is a video of Kurokawa where he talks about a recyclable, sustainable design, creating the first building of its kind in the world. The capsule's life cycle was designed to be 25 years. Kurokawa emphasizes everything is designed to be maintained.

Another perspective is from a Dwell Article by Tom Vanderbilt.

In his own writings, Kurokawa, a Buddhist, offered a fitting and, especially now, quite haunting encomium to the capsule tower: "We used to consider things that could live forever to be beautiful. But this way of thinking has been exposed as a lie. True beauty lies in things that die, things that change."

35 years after the Nakagin Tower, Microsoft's First Container Data Center are the latest efforts to apply Kurokawa's concepts of a recyclable, sustainable design using containers.

The Nakagin tower didn't change the way the designer intended. Which is why it reached its obsolescence, and will be demolished.

Can Microsoft's first container data center avoid the same fate?

Is the container a new unit of maintenance for Microsoft's data center?

Microsoft's Data Center Purchases Influencing Hardware Efficiencies, Dell joins Container Vendor List

May 10, 2008 Dave Ohara

Data Center Knowledge and The Register report on Dell joining the Container list of suppliers, Rackable, Sun, and Verari.

Dell Inc. (DELL) is building a data center in a shipping container for a customer, and will follow with a container product line. "We have (a container system) in the works for a customer," a Dell insider told The Register. "We are looking at that space very, very closely." The Register's Ashlee Vance said it appears Dell has "geared up a container for Microsoft's late April RFP."

The "data center in a box" concept has been embraced by Microsoft, which plans to pack between 150 and 220 40-foot containers into the first floor of its new Chicago data center. Microsoft executives say the new facility will house up to 300,000 servers.

Dell joins a growing herd of hardware vendors offering container solutions, including Sun Microsystems (JAVA), Rackable (RACK) and Verari Systems all report strong interest in their container products. Last month IBM said its new iDataPlex series of cloud computing servers is being offered in a 40-foot trailer, marking IBM's first foray into container-based systems.

Dell squeezes cloud into a shipping container

By Ashlee Vance in Santa Clara → More by this author

9 May 2008 19:22

Exclusive Sun Microsystems endured a lot of ribbing when it first popped out a data center in a shipping container. Now, however, it looks like all the majors are heading in that direction, including Dell, which The Register has learned has a containerized data center in development.

"We have (a container system) in the works for a customer," said a Dell insider. "We are looking at that space very, very closely."

All of the focus on containers is highlighting an interesting change Microsoft has made on the Data Center hardware industry. In the past, Microsoft has written hardware specification documents like this one.

This publication is the first in the Hardware Support and Directions for Windows Server series, which shares the Microsoft intention and investment direction for support of specific hardware technologies in current and future releases of the Windows Server operating system. This series focuses on Windows Server features that are relevant to the hardware capabilities of a server.

This is soft pitch to server OEMs and other hardware vendors to build good Windows Server boxes. This document will not drive big changes.

Given the purchasing by Microsoft's data center properties (search, hotmail, maps,etc.) are now driving Server OEMs with custom RFPs like the CBlox RFP, OEMs are building exactly what Microsoft wants to run a more efficient data center. And, versus Google's model of requiring exclusive designs no one else in the industry can purchase, the Microsoft skus spill into the rest of the market.

To confirm the idea, here is speculation on ask.com's sku being marketed by Dell.

One system, however, really caught our attention and is worth some ink now. It's the XS23, which regular folk cannot buy.

Dell refuses to comment on the server publicly, although we managed to work some information about the hardware out of source.

The XS23 squeezes 4 two-socket servers (in a 2X2 stack) in a 2U chassis along with twelve 3.5 inch SAS/SATA drives across the front of the system. It was designed for a search company, which we believe was Ask.com.

As we understand it, the disk to DIMM count was very important for this search customer, who wanted three drives for every server. This design was enough for the unnamed customer to buy tens of thousands of systems, according to our source.

The Dell system consumes 25 per cent less space than your general purpose blades, which do about 16 two-socket servers in 10U. Dell, of course, stripped out the redundant power supplies and fans to get that density, but these cloud folks have software that can deal with failures just fine.

We even managed to obtain a couple photos of the XS23. The big daddy shots are here and here.

One of the most valuable lists would be Microsoft's data center equipment RFPs and the equipment they chose, but don't hold your breath waiting for Microsoft to make this publicly available. It would be a PR disaster with almost every Server OEM screaming.

Microsoft Employee, Blogs a Response to NYTimes article on Climate-Change Ranking

May 7, 2008 Dave Ohara

The Green PR wars are escalating and the latest report from Climate Counts is covered by the NYTimes.

Craig Berman, a spokesman for Amazon.com — which scored 5 this year, up from zero in 2007 — also shrugged off the scores. He noted that Amazon had made “significant progress” in reducing packaging and otherwise reducing its carbon footprint.

Companies that showed marked improvement were far more exuberant. Google, which has pledged to become carbon neutral, rose by 38 points, to 55. “Projects that had been years in the making came to fruition,” said Bill Weihl, Google’s green energy czar.

The NYTimes article makes no mention of Yahoo or Microsoft. This interesting that Google gets better scores than Yahoo, even though Yahoo has achieved carbon neutrality for 2007 by buying carbon credits. Yahoo scores 37. The Yahoo green staff have got to be pissed.

Microsoft employee, Lewis Curtis, blogs a response to the NYtimes article.

Today, in the New York Times, the Climate Counts group gave an impressive rating to Google 55 while rating Microsoft at a 38. They quoted Google's commitment to go carbon neutral.

Google is a heavy user for energy and all of their green token projects have been tiny. I predict they have spent more money marketing their green projects than the actual projects themselves.

Also, if they have a commitment to be carbon neutral, why don't they release their real carbon footprint numbers? in the spirit of openness and "do no evil", why don't they disclose the real progress or allow the public to tour their centers to see the real work being done to improve environmental impact?

Apple was given a very low rating of 11. I think it's comical in the interview with the New York Times, Apple blamed much of their carbon footprint on their users.

So let talk about Microsoft:

Microsoft is one of the only massive web solutions companies that allows customers to tour their datacenters to see the real environmental improvements to increase efficiency and decrease environmental impact.

From presentations from Microsoft's datacenter team to the public, it's explained how we measure and how granular we measure and what specific steps Microsoft takes. I've worked for many large tech giants and at this point, I haven't seen a more open model to the public.

also:

Microsoft as developed the most aggressive power saving features in the world for client and server computers. There are significant power savings capabilities for consumers and administrators to control to reduce energy consumption of their operating system experience.

Microsoft's .Net platform has capabilities for developers to write power aware applications in WPF (windows presentation foundation) to reduce power drain on client systems.

In the last couple of years,(many would be surprised) Microsoft now offers some of the most consolidation infrastructure options to reduce the number of servers and clients in an IT organization.

Microsoft invests significant amounts of money into the Microsoft Research group to design solutions for consumers and corporations reduce environmental impact.

Microsoft offers some of the most pervasive remote worker solutions in the world.

Microsoft has invested significantly in websites, concerts and public campaigns to help consumers learn how to reduce environmental impact (much of it not relating to our product line).

In reality, it's easy to see how critics can pick apart organizations through their narrow lens. I predict that we will see more of these models in the future. But, I hope the environmental sustainability market matures to a better state than this.

WSJ article "The War for the Web", mentions data center 7 times

May 7, 2008 Dave Ohara

WSJ has an independent opinion article written by Andy Kessler, The War For the Web, discussing the battle for the future of computing between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, and smaller players IBM, Sun. What caught my attention is in Andy's article he mentions data centers 7 times.

Today, there are several major clouds: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and smaller players IBM and Sun. Can there be more? Sure, but it would require a business model that could not only pay for it, but could rip it out every few years and modernize it. Google's $20 billion Web advertising business gives it the cash flow to do so. Advantage Google.

- Speed. Once you build the cloud, it's all about network operations. Whoever can deliver search results faster, wins. Users only realize this subconsciously, but it's true: Google's dominant share is as much about speed as it is for relevant results. Compare it to Microsoft or Yahoo and you'll see. Google built data centers next to waterfalls so electricity could be cheap enough to help it win the speed war.

The continuing battle between Microsoft and Google will mean fierce competition – adding features, building data centers, cutting deals and spending money on speed and customer convenience. That's the way to move technology forward. It's great to see Microsoft with some fight left in it. Not only hasn't the Internet yet matured, it's becoming an ever-more high stakes game.

This article helps to highlight a Green Data Center is part of a corporate strategy for Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon to win the war, they need to be efficient with their resources. The most precious resource is power. Network is second, and water is going to quickly rise as another critical resource.

Microsoft's Debra Chrapaty Keynote Data Center Operations Video, presents Green concepts & CBlox Container

May 5, 2008 Dave Ohara

I mentioned Debra's Keynote in a previous post, and the good thing is her video is available for online viewing.

Microsoft's Debra Chrapaty presented at Microsoft Management Summit as a keynote speaker, The Reality of the Cloud. The subject of her presentation is how Microsoft runs its data centers, the Global Foundation Services group.

Future trends she presents the Microsoft Container, CBlox as well.

The video is here.

She discusses a lot of concepts for Green Data Centers

Power how to measure and manage.
Building and running at scale
Smart Growth
Innovate for Efficiency and Sustainability
Operational excellence
Every kilowatt counts
Environment Sustainability