Microsoft held a press event on September 30th to open their much talked about Chicago Data Center, which is located near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Microsoft seems to be a little more public about their data center and container plans, as they move to expand their online services.
One comment suggests Microsoft may be looking for a new form factor beyond the container. Hmmm.
News reports from CNET and Information Week provide descriptions:
Microsoft opens Windy City data center, CNET
Microsoft Tests Container Approach In Chicago Data Center, Information Week
Here are a few excerpts:
“Microsoft’s suburban Chicago data center is a $550 million bet on a relatively new idea of running servers inside a standard shipping container. The container arrives from the server manufacturer packed with about 2,000 ready-to-run machines, the container goes direct from the delivery truck to the data center floor, and the servers can be online within eight hours of delivery. … Microsoft can get a container of servers delivered from the manufacturer in roughly six to eight weeks. …
“The containers can be stacked two high, and the facility has 56 parking spaces for containers. Today, only about a dozen of those parking spaces are full. And Microsoft already is building a second data center on the same site, which will provide another 56 parking spaces.” — Information Week
“Microsoft’s Chicago data center offers a merge of old and new techniques. The ground floor features sealed containers with tightly packed racks of servers, while the second floor houses more traditional server rooms. …
[T]he ground floor of the Chicago plant looks more like a truck parking lot than a traditional data center. In each parking spot, though, Microsoft can drop off a container packed with up to 2,000 servers.” — CNET
“… Its researchers are working on ways to deliver air conditioning and heating as modular units as well, since they’re a huge part of a data center’s fixed equipment costs.
“And there’s a wide open space in the middle of the Chicago data center, where there are no yellow parking space lines painted. The next generation of modular units won’t be shipping containers, Costello saysthough he’s not yet ready to say what form they will be.” — Information Week