Microsoft Architecture in 1998
July 8, 2008
At the time Google was hatching, Microsoft had made decisions about its architecture. I was prowling through my archive of online information, and I found a reference to a document called “Challenges to Building Scalable Services: A Survey of Microsoft’s Internet Services” by Steven Levi and Galen Hunt.
I went looking for this document on July 7, 2008, and I was able to find a copy here. In terms of computing, this decade old write up is the equivalent of poking around a dirt hill on Mykonos looking for a pottery shard. I scanned this document and found it remarkable because it revealed the difference between Google’s engineering decisions and Microsoft’s. I believe that these differences, so clear now, contribute to Google’s lead in Web search, advertising, and some Web services.
I cannot summarize a document that runs more than 8,000 words. What I can do is identify three points that I want to explore in the months ahead:
First, Microsoft’s approach identifies hot spots resulting from read-write disc accesses. Microsoft addressed the problem using “farm pairs”. Google adopted a massively parallel, distributed set up with the Google File System and a master that pushed messaging down to workers, thus reducing message traffic.
Second, Microsoft’s approach relied on human system administrators to handle certain routine tasks; for example, dealing with server failures in server “farms”. Google decided early on to let the Google File System and other proprietary techniques deal with failures; in effect, reducing the need for large numbers of system administrators and technicians in data centers.
Third, the “farm” used clones and packs of partitions running on name-brand hardware. Within the architecture, databased content lived in partitions with a “temp state” running on a separate replicated “pack”. Google did the opposite. Commodity hardware could be dynamically allocated. The Google approach slashed operating costs and added flexibility.
There are more differences, and I will comment on some of them in future discussions of the differences between Google and Microsoft a decade ago. If you have an interest in how Microsoft approach online at the moment when Google began its rise to 70 percent market share, the Levi and Hunt document is useful.
Stephen Arnold, July 8, w008
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