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By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com
August 22, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- First announced in July, Microsoft has revealed new details about its Iowa data center plan, announcing it will be located in West Des Moines and cost $500 million to build.
According to a Des Moines Register report Thursday, these specific details were revealed at a welcoming ceremony including Gov. Chet Culver. The half-billion dollar project will occupy 42 acres of the Des Moines suburb and employ 50 to 75 workers with annual salaries in the range of $70,000.
The planning and construction of such a project will take approximately 12 to 18 months, Microsoft general manager of data center services Michael Manos told the Des Moines Register. However, this data farm may take longer because it will feature Microsoft's "next generation" technology that will provide cutting-edge technology.
Culver remarked that it is one of the most "modern facilities in the world." With a focus on energy efficiency, the West Des Moines facility is made of server-filled containers that are easier to setup and maintain than traditional architecture according to Microsoft.
Cheap electricity and tax incentives were a major draw to Iowa, which is quickly becoming known for its web portal tax breaks. In July, it was believed that Microsoft was in discussion with the state about tax breaks. When Google negotiated their $600 million Iowa data center that began construction last year, they were given tax exemptions on computers, electricity and related equipment used in a data centers.
Microsoft's West Des Moines data center is the fifth announced this year, following Chicago, San Antonio, Dublin and the Washington state facility in Quincy. Microsoft expects to start work on two-dozen, 500,000 square foot data centers by the end of 2008.
Read Back Issues of WHIR Magazine
October 2009 - Web Hosting's All Star Team
This has been, for us, one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging build-ups to an issue of the magazine yet, Web Hosting's All Star Team. The balloting process was our first experiment with a kind of user participation we're planning to do a lot more with in the months to come. We had thousands of ballots submitted, with hundreds of write-in suggestions and a demonstration of user engagement that has us feeling super positive about the project.
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July 2009 - What am I Worth?
One of the interesting luxuries of working on a project like the printed WHIR magazine is that it allows us to play with things like our point of view from one issue to the next. In recent months we've been giving added attention to the kind of practical and applicable advice aimed at smaller hosts and resellers. This issue carries on with that point of view, asking, in our cover story, "what am I worth?" It's a complicated question without a clear-cut answer.
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May 2009 - The Blueprint for a Small Web Host
I was a little surprised by how difficult it became to see this idea through. We set out to assemble a blueprint for a small hosting business, but butted up pretty quickly against the general impossibility of covering all the territory that was out there to be covered. The basic constraints of a printed magazine, and the less-than-infinite amount of time we had available forced us to face the fact that we could never produce an exhaustive guide to starting a hosting company.
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