Tech-Ed 2011 Day 3 - Microsoft Data Centers

COS211 How Microsoft Manages Its Cloud Infrastructure at a Huge Scale

This was a fast paced and informative session from Rick Bakken, Senior Director Data Center Evangelism of Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services.

All of the Microsoft data centers are run from their Global Foundational Services division, which handle all data center facilities, hardware, and network in an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model.

There was a walk-through of the evolution of the Microsoft data centers, from the Portal era (MSN in the 1990’s), Online Application era (Windows Live, Messenger), Web Services era (Xbox Live, Bing, Windows Update), and now the Cloud Computing era (Azure, Office 365). Each generation of data center has reduced the power usage effectiveness (PUE = total facility power / IT equipment power) from 2.0 to almost 1.2.

A clear sense of pride was shown for the new ITPAC solution - a container of 2000 servers needing only to be connected to network, power, and a minimal amount of water for adiabatic cooling. The newer data centers (such as Quincy) are using these in an open-walled facility. The specifications for these are specified by GFS, and provided, installed, maintained for their lifespan, and disposed of at the end of life by OEM providers.

Interesting tidbit - with all of the hardware running  for Microsoft services, each data center has only three Microsoft employees, 3 managers responsible for managing the contracts with their vendors that run the data centers.