MS Details Further Modular IDC Plans

• By Anastasia Tubanos, December 02, 2008

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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In a blog post on Tuesday, software giant Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) shared details on what it believes will be foundation for its cloud data center infrastructure over the next five years - Microsoft's "Generation 4" modular data center.

Michael Manos, Microsoft's data center services director, described the Gen 4 data center in his blog post as "one of the most revolutionary changes to happen to data centers in the last 30 years" and a concept many industry professionals and pundits could "find intimidating (or downright frightening)," but unquestionably an approach everyone in the industry could benefit from, if merely to spark further discussion on the topic.

"Our Gen 4 modular data centers will take the flexibility of containerized servers - like those in our Chicago data center - and apply it across the entire facility," writes Manos. "So what do we mean by modular? Think of it like 'building blocks,' where the data center will be composed of modular units of prefabricated mechanical, electrical, security components, etc., in addition to containerized servers."

Manos included a video in his post, that shows Microsoft's Generation 4 data center vision.

Microsoft recently completed the first phase of its Chicago data center in October, which is believed to be the first facility to extensively use standard shipping containers as a primary server-packaging unit.

In that particular announcement, Microsoft reported that the Chicago data center will comprise 40-foot shipping containers, each loaded with approximately 2,500 servers each, enabling Microsoft to add capacity quickly to support its Software plus Services strategy.

Although the blog post goes into extensive detail into the Gen 4 design, some of the main characteristics Manos points out as advantages are that the data centers will be highly scalable, offer a plug-and-play infrastructure, enable rapid deployment, reduce construction time and costs, as well as enable businesses to decommission, repair and upgrade quickly because everything is modular.

The new approach will cut capital costs by 20 percent to 40 percent and see data centers deployed and ready for business in just three to six months, reports Ina Fried of CNET News.

"We believe this is a big game changer," writes Manos. "In short, we are striving to bring Henry Ford's Model T factory to the data center. Gen 4 will move data centers from a custom design and build model to a commoditized manufacturing approach?Think about how a computer, car or plane is built today. Components are manufactured by different companies all over the world to a predefined spec and then integrated in one location based on demands and feature requirements."

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