I had posted on the slides James presented, but his video was not live at the time.
Below is James's presentation with 7,055 views.
Amazon cranks the numbers and... Yes, they decide 100% renewable for AWS
Amazon is a company that always runs the numbers on whether something makes sense. For years, Amazon didn't think it was worthwhile to have renewable energy as part of its data center portfolio. In 2011, though AWS had its first renewable energy site in Oregon, and they have added two more.
Options for Customers Seeking Carbon-Neutral Cloud Infrastructure
AWS introduced its first carbon-neutral region – US West (Oregon) – in 2011. Today, AWS offers customers three AWS Regions that are 100% carbon-neutral – US West (Oregon), EU (Frankfurt), and AWS GovCloud (US).
And now Amazon has announced it plans on being 100% renewable.
In addition to the environmental benefits inherently associated with running applications in the cloud, AWS has a long-term commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure footprint.
I've been blogging on the idea of a green data center since 2007 and things have come a long way with Google, Apple, Facebook, and now Amazon amongst many others who have decided 100% renewable energy is a good choice.
Being 100% renewable is a milestone, but not the end. Having a sustainable strategy for data centers is more than the energy consumption. There are so many others things to work on to green a data center.
The nice thing is I don't have to focus on the renewable energy part as the media has caught on to the concept.
Amazon Vows to Run on 100 Percent Renewable Energy
Wired - 12 hours ago
Over the past few years, Apple, Google, and Facebook pledged to run their online empires on renewable energy, and considering how large these empires have become—how many data centers and machines are now required to keep them going—this was ...
Amazon Vows to Run Its Cloud Entirely on Renewable Energy
TIME - 2 hours ago
Amazon on Wednesday vowed to run its cloud-computing division completely on renewable energy, following in the footsteps of tech giants Apple, Google and Facebook in making a comprehensive environmental pledge regarding its data services.
Amazon will run all its data centers on renewable energy...eventually
GeekWire - 18 hours ago
AWS-Logo-Orange Environmentally-conscious cloud users got good news today: Amazon has pledged to get all of its data centers running entirely on renewable energy. In a new post on the AWS website, Amazon said that the company has made a ...
Amazon Joins The 'Race To Build A Green Internet' With A 100% Renewable ...
International Business Times - 2 hours ago
The group estimated that Amazon Web Services gets only 15 percent of its energy from renewables such as wind and solar power, while the rest comes mostly from carbon-intensive sources such as coal-fired power plants. In an April report, Greenpeace gave ...
Amazon promises to run entirely on renewable energy... finally
ZDNet - 18 hours ago
amazon-hero (Image: Amazon via CNET). Amazon has promised to achieve 100 percent renewable energy usage for its global footprint, the company announced on Wednesday. No firm deadline was given, but it's likely to take many years. Perhaps even ...
James Hamilton presents on AWS Data Centers - 2014 AWS Reinvent LV
At AWS Reinvent 2014 James Hamilton gave an update on the state of AWS data centers.
SPOT301 - AWS Innovation at Scale
This session, led by James Hamilton, VP & Distinguished Engineer, gives an insider view of some the innovations that help make the AWS cloud unique. He will show examples of AWS networking innovations from the interregional network backbone, through custom routers and networking protocol stack, all the way down to individual servers. He will show examples from AWS server hardware, storage, and power distribution and then, up the stack, in high scale streaming data processing. James will also dive into fundamental database work AWS is delivering to open up scaling and performance limits, reduce costs, and eliminate much of the administrative burden of managing databases. Join this session and walk away with a deeper understanding of the underlying innovations powering the cloud.
Let's start with Power. AWS now has three data centers that are carbon neutral and AWS has negotiated their own power purchase agreements like Google.
Discussing the network infrastructure you can see the current state of AWS locations.
A data center can have between 50k - 80k servers.
Like Google and Facebook, AWS has its own server skus that they have had developed for their workloads.
Here is a video of James as well at AWS Reinvent.
The Cloud Battle, A War to Sell Data Center Bits - Amazon, Google, Microsoft
This time of year is turning into a Cloud Battle, a war between Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to deliver bits as a service from data centers. iPhone vs. Android is a battle of mobile bits. OS X vs. Windows 7/8/10 is a battle of desktop bits. The Cloud is a battle to deliver bits as a service from data centers.
Microsoft had their cloud, and Google just finished theirs. Next week is AWS Reinvent. The media covers the battles.
Google's Newest Attack On Amazon
When I read so many of the media articles though I think they are focused on how big fleet is or the latest technology. Huh? Like this article makes the point of measuring the naval power by the tonnage of the fleet misses the point.
Measuring Naval Power: Bigger Ain’t Always Better
...
Navies were largely symmetrical in those thrilling days of yesteryear. That simplified matters. Size was a decent proxy for fighting power when battle fleets made up largely of capital ships bearing big guns squared off. That was before the era — an era that persists to this day — when small craft could carry armament comparable to that of capital ships. A destroyer couldn’t tote big guns back then. A lowly missile boat or sub can fire munitions comparable to those of a capital ship today — and to the same deadly effect.
I have got a chance to close hand see how executives at Google (Urs Hoelzle), Amazon (Werner Vogel), and Microsoft (Scott Guthrie) perform at Gigaom Structure on stage and behind. It’s kind of like seeing the Generals/Admirals of the military.
This is not a simple battle where more servers and more MW of data center capacity win the war. How well your team operates using the technology which in the case of the bits (software) was created by other team members is so important.
I think I could write a whole book on the battles between between Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. In fact, I am sure there is someone who has already made a book proposal for this. Unfortunately or fortunately, I am too busy working on other things to document things in an entertaining way to sell a book. What I can do is watch as an observer to see strategies being played.
The Cloud Battle may be one of the most interesting technology wars fought with billions of dollars of data centers and IT equipment and 10,000s of development staff, reaching around the world.
Below is Google’s Points of Presence.
Oh, one point I do want to make that I forgot is. Just like Sun Tzu the Art of War Point 18. “All warfare is based on deception” The good know how to deceive the enemy and they can use the media to spread the deception. Don’t believe everything you read.
18. All warfare is based on deception.
Microsoft puts ex-Amazon VP in charge of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations, including data centers
Last week Microsoft put an ex-Amazon.com VP in charge of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations. I’ve had e-mail conversations on the changes with lots of people asking questions, but I couldn’t write anything. Well, now I can blog something because of public disclosure. Suresh Kumar, VP of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations updated his LinkedIn profile.
Last week Suresh’s linkedin profile only showed Suresh’s Amazon experience even though he had been at Microsoft for months and his job change to Microsoft was not added yet.
VP, Worldwide Retail Systems and Retail Services
Amazon
August 2008 – May 2014 (5 years 10 months)Greater Seattle Area
As the Vice President of Worldwide Retail Systems, managed a global team of 500 engineers across seven locations, including four Vice Presidents of Technology and twelve Engineering Directors. Responsible for technology that powers core retail functions such as pricing, promotions, catalog and vendor management for all Amazon properties worldwide. Responsible for all aspects of technology, including program management, software development, testing, support, operations and business analytics.
As the Retail CTO, responsible for establishing software architecture standards, and maintaining consistency in hiring and leveling of senior engineering talent across all retail divisions. Responsible for setting architecture direction for all Amazon retail subsidiaries and integrating subsidiaries into the Amazon technology stack.
As head of Retail Services, currently managing a team of 2000 associates across nine centers and twenty product imaging studios worldwide, responsible for creating and maintaining all item information, including item images for products sold by Amazon retail.
Now there are these two entries.
Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud Infrastructure and Operations
Microsoft
October 2014 – Present (1 month)Redmond, WAResponsible for designing, building and operating the infrastructure that power's Microsoft's cloud; the engineering systems required for automating and optimizing the processes associated with the planning and management of the cloud infrastructure.
There are many more details, but the above is all I could find that has been published.
Will be interesting to see how Suresh does in his role at Microsoft. He has a background that is different than many and I didn’t find any data center experience in his background.
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Bachelor of Technology (BTech), Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
1983 – 1987...· Ten patents on work related to mobile computers. Three patents on collaborative computing, one on cryptography and one on electronic auctions. Several patent applications on e-commerce are pending.
