BBC Tours Inside Microsoft’s Quincy Data Center

Here is a BBC Video inside Microsoft’s Quincy Data Center.

image

The online article is here.

The town in the cloud...
  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 27 Oct 08, 09:15 GMT

I'm in the United States to report on several stories, including the whole phenomenon of cloud computing. More on that on the television and radio on Tuesday, but in the meantime, let me take you to one of the places we've filmed, the town with its head in the cloud.

Ariel view of data centre, QuincyWe've been to Quincy, a remote farming town of 5,000 inhabitants in the middle of the state of Washington, where just about the only activities until recently were either planting potatoes or turning them into chips - or rather French fries. Now it's home to three giant data centres.

The biggest belongs to Microsoft, which completed its brutally ugly building on a former bean-field last year, to be followed swiftly by Yahoo and now the financial software firm Intuit. We were allowed access to Microsoft's centre - the first TV crew to get inside - and after passing through several layers of security found ourselves in one of the server rooms.

There are 10 of them, with up to 30,000 servers in each, an almost unimaginable amount of computing power. Walking around, deafened by the roar from the cooling systems needed to keep the computers chilled, you feel you're right in the belly of the modern internet.

Oh yeh thanks to Steve Clayton’s: geek in disguise blog I found this post.

Read more

Dell Powers Microsoft Windows Azure

Dell has a blog post on its Cloud Computing Blog.

Dell Powers Microsoft Azure

Mon. Oct. 27, 2008

Today marks the start of an important chapter in the unfolding story of cloud computing. Microsoft has entered the ranks of cloud platform service providers with the launch of Windows® Azure™ and the Azure Services Platform.  Microsoft selected cloud-optimized Dell servers to power the Azure platform.  

Forrest Norrod, Vice President and General Manager of Dell's Data Center Solutions Division, took a moment to share his thoughts about the announcement in this video:

Here is the Dell HW used in ask.com /2008/05/more-details-on.html

Read more

Australia’s First High Density Data Centre

Australian IT writes on Australia’s first high-density data centre.

Data centres cluster to trim costs

Mitchell Bingemann | October 28, 2008

AUSTRALIA'S first high-density data centre complex is on track for completion next year, after phase one of its construction.

Data centres cluster to trim costs

Michael Tran says virtual blades are key to cuts

The Data Centre City, being built by Digital Sense at an undisclosed site outside Brisbane, will consist of five high-density data centres, Digital Sense chief executive Michael Tran says.

Due for completion in the second quarter of 2009, Data Centre City will cover 12,500sqm.

Tran says it will have a maximum capacity of 6500W per square metre, compared with about 800W per square metre in traditional data centres.

"In traditional data centre terms, Data Centre City's 12,500qqm will represent about 140,000sqm of floor space," Tran says.

"We are modelling these high-density data centres on the American style, which typically features much larger and higher quality data centres."

High-density data centres differ from traditional data centres in that they virtualise blade servers to achieve greater capacity, power efficiency and big savings in floor space. Digital Sense has completed the first phase of construction with a $300,000 purchase of Sun gear consisting of 20 AMD servers, a tape library and back-up storage systems.

Read more

Microsoft Projects Big Investments for Windows Azure

ComputerWorld’s Eric Lai reports on a PDC session by Ben Ravani.

Microsoft to support Windows Azure with massive data center investments

Company is building out a cloud computing infrastructure to top rivals Amazon.com, Google and Salesforce.com

By Eric Lai

October 27, 2008 (Computerworld) Despite the economic downturn,Microsoft Corp. intends to ramp up the number of servers running in its data centers worldwide by 15 times over the next 5 years.

The growth, outlined in a presentation on Monday at its Professional Developers Conference, is designed to handle increased hosted computing demand from enterprise software running on its new Windows Azure platform, also announced today, as well as third-party services Microsoft hopes to attract.

Microsoft expects to boost the number of data centers it operates by three times, its power usage by 15 times, and the Internet traffic going out of its data centers by nine-fold, said Benjamin Ravani, general manager of Microsoft's Global Foundation Services, during a technical session.

There have been reports of cutbacks in a financial review.

Microsoft had announced similar growth projections earlier this year. But Ravani's reiteration of those comments come a week after Redmond announced plans to tighten its fiscal belt, including cutting $500 million in spending this fiscal year by slowing hiring and cutting travel and marketing expenses.

But, Microsoft is still focused on its battle with Google and Amazon.

Despite its belated arrival to so-calledcloud computing services, Microsoft appears to be sparing no dime on building out a back-end infrastructure that tops competitors such as Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc. andSalesforce.com Inc.

Microsoft has announced five data centers in the past 12 months, including in San Antonio, Tx., Chicago, Il. and Des Moines, Ia. Both its Chicago and Des Moines data centers will be massive, $500 million facilities that will have many of its servers pre-configured and installed in shipping containers.

Investing in a big way now, Microsoft has argued, will save money later.

Read more

Google looks for Data Center Space in Australia

Data Center Dynamics report rumors Google is looking for Data Center space in Australia.

Google scouts for data centers in Australia

Media reports high level discussions

(10/27/2008)

Google has sent a high level delegation to Australia for a fact finding mission on its viability as a data center location local news media has reported.
According to AustralianIT Google experts have been involved in discussions with data center providers and are reportedly to have been led by Google’s Simon Tusha.
Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin said it was still early days: "While we're investing in our Australian operations, we haven't made any decisions about whether we'll locate a data centre here." The company didn't deny having discussions with data centre providers.
The report said that the discussions took place over the last few weeks and involved five US staff.

It’s hard to be Green in Australia, but they do need to be efficient given the cost of power.

One place I am sure Google will visit is Digital Sense given their latest data center capacity and energy efficiency.

Read more