Microsoft Plumbing: Big Online Facility in Big Shoulder Territory

June 30, 2009

The Microsoft data center news keeps on swirling in my Overflight intel system. Patrick Thibodeau’s “Microsoft to Open Two Mall Sized Data Centers” levered my interest. Computer World reported:

Microsoft Corp. on Monday said it is preparing to flip the switch on what will eventually be more than 1 million square feet of data center space in two facilities, one in Chicago, the other in Dublin, Ireland. These centers will house hundreds of thousands of servers to help support the company’s Bing search engine and other online services.

Google does not provide this type of detail about its plumbing. My hunch is that Google doesn’t want to help anyone figure out how much the company invests in infrastructure and Google may not want to get tangled in a “who has the bigger facility” argument with its competitors, azure chip consultants, and besmirched MBAs seeking a commission from stock churn.

The numbers reported in the Computer World article stunned this addled goose. For example:

The Chicago center, which opens July 20 and is now said to be 700,000 square feet in size, will use containers that can be the size of tractor-trailers, with 1,800 to 2,500 servers each. The first phase of the Chicago center to go live has more than 50 parking stalls for shipping containers, which Microsoft said can be wheeled in and installed in hours. The facility’s second floor will have server racks.

Now that is a lot of Windows servers. Imagine the configuration work required to set these up, verify that the ever wonderful SQL Server clusters are running like clockwork, ensure that the fail over does not fail, and test to make sure that back ups actually restore.

Chicago has nuclear power generation facilities. That’s a plus. This data center is likely to consume more electricity than Blue Island. “Just Bing it” has new meaning to the executives at Exelon Corp.

Stephen Arnold, June 30, 2009

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Financial, Microsoft, News, Online (general), Search, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.