What is it like to be inside one of the World’s Largest Data Centers?
Posted on November 9, 2009 by admin Under Technology · Leave a Comment
Located in Chicago the new Microsoft data center looks like most of the other buildings in the area which is mostly industrial.
When you arrive at the ground level it is very unimpressive looking like a huge parking lot with trailers parked in it.
However it begins to become impressive when you consider that many of the machines needed to run the great cloud computing efforts are housed in those same trailers. Basically each of these houses impressive 1800-2500 servers. All of these servers are working on the new Microsoft Azure which is a cloud based operating system. Basically at any given time each one of these servers could be sending out emails, instant messages, or running applications that are to be a part of this new system.
Upstairs from this level is one of the largest data centers in the world. Microsoft has put into place four raised floor server rooms. These rooms are each around 12,000 square feet. They each consume around three megawatts of power as well. Eventually the data center will reach over 700,000 square feet.
When talking to employees there is a great reverence to the size of the data center and many believe that this will eventually be the largest data center in the world.
This location actually runs on 30 megawatts of power and is not finished. This is a much larger amount of power than most people have seen.
The facility opened on a comfortable day in September. However the site is prepared to be able to keep the buildings cool with 7.5 miles of water pipes that are filled with water which is chilled as necessary.
Dependent upon the weather the chillers will be turned off as they were during the grand opening.
Microsoft is willing to share a lot of information about its facility and the things that are housed inside. However they do not share the names of employees, the brand of servers used, or their exact location.
Further the company likes to keep it secret as to which services are run from their specific facilities. Since the Chicago location is home to many Bing posters there are speculations drawn from that.
The software company had intended on opening the facility a year prior. However considering the state of the economy many people have been laid off and have been a slower pace when opening new data centers. Further there have been other cutbacks that have taken place as well. So the facility was finally ready for their grand opening in September of this year.
However, only one month after this grand opening there was again a lot of attention that was being drawn from Microsoft. T-Mobile customers who had Sidekicks had a major problem accessing data that has lasted quite some time when a major server crashed.
This problem only further instilled the fear that with cloud computing there is a chance that everything could eventually be missing because of this problem.
The company readily points out that there are major differences in the areas and building of the systems in place that ran the Sidekick and the new systems that are being installed like the one in Chicago. They have stated that there are files that are saved in multiple formats to prevent there from ever being a problem where accessing these files was not possible.
Microsoft presented information about Azure at the Developer’s Conference that was located in Los Angeles, CA. There were details shared here about the system and how it can provide so much while offering so few jobs. Further Microsoft made it public that the plans were to be ready to switch to Azure by February 1, 2010.
The company plans on checking into the Chicago facility as part of what could be used for Azure.
Basically there have been speculations that there will actually be fewer jobs that will be available as things progress.
The idea is that over time there will be even more capacity needed by the company and that there will be more customization in the needs. Basically the intention is to find the best location for the best amount of work. Further there was even a claim that the financial things with the company were mostly predetermined prior to the data center being studies or opened.
The president of Microsoft commented that there was already a main choice for the following project on this level.
Further there were promises to make improvements off of the data center as well.
Basically if the company builds a building then they are able to provide the necessary means for the growth but with the trailer system they can also promote a smaller work space when needed.
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