Microsoft's Xbox One announces 300k servers, trouble for Sony and Nintendo

The TV console wars are between Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.  Sony had a serious outage that brought down its service.

The PlayStation Network outage was the result of an "external intrusion" on Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, in which personal details from approximately 77 million accounts were stolen and prevented users of PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles from playing online through the service.^[1][2][3][4] The attack occurred between April 17 and April 19, 2011,^[1] forcing Sony to turn off the PlayStation Network on April 20. On May 4 Sony confirmed that personally identifiable information from each of the 77 million accounts appeared to have been stolen.^[5] The outage lasted 24 days

I would guess anyone who has worked in Sony's online services group has a bad taste in their mouth and it is hard to get more resources.  

Xbox One launched this past week and Xbox Live is a big part of the services.

DatacenterKnowledge mentions that Microsoft will have 300,000 servers as part of Xbox One.  Running a Google Search, Bing search didn't show up the source of the information as a Microsoft transcript of the event.

When we launched Xbox Live in 2002, it was powered by 500 servers. With the advent of the 360, that number had grown to over 3,000. Today, 15,000 servers power the modern Xbox Live experience. But this year, we will have more than 300,000 severs for Xbox One, more than the entire world's computing power in 1999. (Cheers, applause.)

This matches the DCK article.

“When we launched Xbox Live in 2002, it was powered by 500 servers,” Microsoft’s Marc Whitten said in introducing the new platform. “With the advent of the 360, that had grown to over 3,000. Today, 15,000 servers power the modern Xbox Live experience. But this year, we will have more than 300,000 servers for Xbox One.”

Curious I wanted to see what was actually said, so I found the Xbox One Launch event on Youtube and at 23:13 mark is where the Xbox server reference is made.  And thanks to Youtube transcript here is the text.

23:13

when we launch xbox live in two thousand two it was powered by five hundred

23:16

servers

23:17

with the advent of the three sixty that number had grown to over three thousand

23:22

today

23:22

fifteen thousand servers power the modern xbox live experience

23:27

but this year

23:29

we'll have more than three hundred thousand servers for xbox one

23:33

more than the entire world computing power in nineteen ninety nine

 

Part of what I do for some clients is provide research services and it is important to get to the original source of information and show where the public disclosures were.  Thanks to YouTube and other online services it is so much easier to get to the source of information which is transforming how news is reported and how analysis can be done.

Green A Data Center with Data

GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham posts on the panel discussion I moderated at GigaOm Structure Data.

I want to thank Tamara Budec (Goldman Sachs), Heather Marquez (Facebook) and Amaya Souarez (Microsoft) for joining me on a great topic to discuss.

Want a better/greener/more agile data center? Use the data.

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Want to see big data in action? When it comes to planning out data center capacity, data can influence everything from the power usage to planning for disasters.

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Stacey does a great job of summarizing the talk.

If you want to see the video you can see it here.

Microsoft's Poop Data Center matches Apple's 2X Fuel Cell expansion social traffic

Within a couple of weeks Microsoft announced a Poop powered data center, and Charlotte Observer discovered in public permit documents that Apple is doubling its fuel cell capacity.  The first is a supported PR release, the 2nd is not a PR, but a leak for the Apple paparazzi.  Which did better?  From a traffic stand point, they look about equal looking at social metrics on news.com.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57552152-71/microsoft-speaks-poop-to-power/ 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57557187-37/apple-looks-to-double-its-n.c-biogas-fuel-cell-farm/

Microsoft has a bunch of news covering its poop powered data center.

Commence Giggling: Microsoft's New Data Center Will Be Fueled by Poop

Geekosystem -‎Nov 20, 2012‎

This is really happening!Microsoftannounced in a blog post on Monday that they're building a newdata centerthat will be fueled by the methane from a sewage treatment plant. The newdata centerwill be a 200kW facility built at the existing Dry Creek Water...

Turning poop into power: Microsoft building innovative data center to test clean ...

GeekWire -‎Nov 19, 2012‎

In other words, they're figuring out how to turnpoopinto power. Without energy from a local power grid,Microsoftwill maintain a 200-kilowattdata centerdirectly next to the Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility waste water treatment plant in Cheyenne,...

Microsoft plans poop-fueled data center

Seattle Post Intelligencer -‎Nov 19, 2012‎

Page 1 of 1.Microsoftplans to build the firstdata centerthat is completely off the grid, recycling "common waste" to sustainably power cloud services, the company announced Monday. The Redmond-based tech giant is spending about $5.5 million in research...

Microsoft speaks poop to power

CNET -‎Nov 19, 2012‎

Microsoftdoesn't want to risk taking any verbal dung from you on such matters, so it announced today that it is building adata centerpowered by, well, waste matter. Yes, yourMicrosoftcloud uploads could soon be powered by your own personal downloads.

Microsoft Uncovers Special Bond Between Computers and Toilets

Wired -‎Nov 19, 2012‎

ButMicrosoftbelieves this will be the first “zero carbon”data center, meaning it won't be responsible for harmful carbon emissions unloaded onto Mother Nature, and it may be the first to actually power adata centerwithpoop— though this has long been the...

Microsoft plans to build data center in Wyoming that runs on human and animal ...

Daily Mail -‎Nov 21, 2012‎

Microsoftis not a company to let anything go to waste, as it proved this week by unveiling a project to build adata centerin Wyoming that runs, well, on waste. The new plant will be operated out of the Dry Creek Water Reclamation Facility in Cheyenne,...

And here is Apple's coverage

Apple Data Center Does Fuel Cell Industry a Huge Favor MIT Technology Review - ‎3 hours ago‎ Apple says the much-watched project (Wired actually hired a pilot to take photos of it) will be one of the most environmentally benign data centers ever built because it will use several energy-efficiency tricks and run on biogas-powered fuel cells and a giant ...   Apple to double size of fuel cell plant at NC data center Apple Insider - ‎22 hours ago‎ Apple to double size of fuel cell plant at NC data center. By Mikey Campbell. A new filing with the North Carlina Utilities Commission reveals that Apple plans to double the number of fuel cells deployed at its Maiden data center, with a total energy output able ...   Apple Doubles Renewable Project at Expense of Duke Energy Customers National Legal and Policy Center - ‎1 hour ago‎ A data center in western North Carolina built by Apple, Inc. has now doubled the size of its associated power-generating fuel cell facility, one which in April NLPC reported was a conflict of interest for Apple director and former Vice President Al Gore.   Apple's Data Center and the Clean Energy Paradox The Green Optimistic (blog) - ‎11 hours ago‎ Apple 300x137 Apple's Data Center and the Clean Energy Paradox According to the North Carolina Utility Commission, Apple intends to double the amount of fuel cells it will use at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. In November, Apple filed to ...   Apple to double fuel-cell capacity in North Carolina DatacenterDynamics - ‎19 hours ago‎ Apple wants to double the generation capacity of its fuel-cell plant next to its massive data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The company has filed papers with the state's utility regulators, notifying them of the plan to increase the size of the fuel-cell installation ...   Apple looks to double its NC biogas fuel cell farm CNET - ‎Dec 4, 2012‎ Apple announced in May that it intended to have its $1 billion data center in Maiden, N.C., run entirely off renewable energy by the end of the year. The company said it was building two solar array installations in the area, which when combined will bring in 84 ...   Apple to double its already massive fuel cell farm in North Carolina GigaOM - ‎Dec 4, 2012‎ Apple has decided to more than double the amount of fuel cells it is using to generate power at its data center in North Carolina, according to filings with the North Carolina Utility Commission, and first reported by The Charlotte Observer. Fuel cell provider ...

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Would you rather read about Wind/Solar powered data Center or a Poop powered data center? Google vs. Microsoft

I was reading Compass Data Centers's Chris Crosby post 

Holy Air Biscuits Batman!

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Just when you think things just can’t get any weirder, I read that Microsoft is working to develop a data center that runs on sewage. You read that correctly, sewage, a.k.a. human waste, a.k.a fill in your own potty level descriptor here. It’s said that necessity is “the mother of invention” but isn’t this taking things just a little too far? Microsoft says that this is yet another of their green initiatives. I say that if you’re running a data center using the byproduct of an entire state’s worth of indoor plumbing capacity you’ve probably stretched the boundaries of euphemism to the breaking point. I guess in their quest to achieve their objective of becoming carbon neutral the boys in Redmond will leave no stone unturned…or toilet seat up for that matter.

I’m always fascinated by how ideas like this come about. Many of us have been in those corporate “brain storming” sessions where half the company is squeezed into a conference room, the walls are papered with those sticky notes on steroids, and everyone is half-stoned on magic marker fumes, and heard some pretty outlandish proposals. But imagine sitting in a room when someone suggests that we should try powering the new data center with the truest form of “biogas”, and, rather than being met with murmured snickers and knowing rib jabs, someone pipes up and says, “You know, I think Phil is really on to something here”. Talk about your broad mindedness. If this is the concept that they all coalesced around, it kind of makes you wonder what they thought were the bad ideas.

And it got me thinking would users rather read about a wind powered data center or a poop powered one?

Google uses Wind and Solar as its primary message.

Microsoft has posts on the use of biogas.

You can argue which is better for the environment, but what do you think people want to read about?

Economist Article on the fight between Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon

The Economist has a great article on the competition between Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.

The article closes with an excellent point that the regulators could change the game rules.

The Others

Watchdogs in Europe and America have been looking into accusations that Apple has colluded with some publishers to break Amazon’s grip on e-books. And they have been scrutinising Google too. Some companies, including ones with links to Microsoft, have accused the search firm of unfairly promoting its own services, such as Google+, in search results. They also claim that it uses content from competitors without permission, and that it has struck anti-competitive deals in search advertising. The firm is under fire for allegedly using smartphone patents to stifle competition. Google’s legions of lawyers have been battling these charges.

Their lordships Page, Cook, Zuckerberg and Bezos thus need to map a course for their respective firms through dangerous legal and regulatory territory. At the same time they have to avoid being distracted from fighting their rivals; the mad emperors of Microsoft lost a lot of ground by taking on the inhuman might of the Department of Justice. And the shareholders, hungry for returns in a moribund global economy, need to be kept happy.

A king who pulled all this off might claim the throne by right; but his chances of being more than first among equals, or of a lengthy reign, would be slim. As in Westeros, these battles and plots promise many more sequels and series.