Green Your Network Blog

Microsoft is trying to keep up with the demand for an additional 10,000 servers a month. The majority of the servers are needed for “search” (approximately 80,000 or so) and the rest are mostly allotted for things like Hotmail, messenger, consumer video, photo services as well as its collection of hosted enterprise services.

Their new solution is pretty cool. They have begun loading up servers in sealed shipping containers. These containers are already networked together and ready to go. Each individual container is then hooked up to power, networking, and air conditioning. It’s almost like the container itself is a memory appliance and the servers inside are the hard drives. After a certain number of servers in the container have failed, the whole container will be removed by truck and a new one loaded in its place.

San Antonio, Texas, data center under construction.

So what does all this have to with “greening your network?

Here is what Microsoft’s general manager of infrastructure Arne Josefsberg had to say about it, “You contain your infrastructure but you also contain the heat that’s generated from the servers. We are working incredibly hard to improve the energy efficiency of our data centers. Even a 1 percent or 2 percent reduction in power consumption makes a big difference.”

It’s pretty cool how they have spun this new efficient way of managing server volume into an environmentally friendly platform.
Although I am not aware of any published figures by Microsoft, the fact is, server racks at web hosting facilities may have power densities of 70 watts to 100 watts per square foot. When you consider the density in the Microsoft containers, they should now be consuming considerably fewer watts of power per square foot. Therefore, I think they are fully justified in spinning their new “container” solution as an environmentally friendly one (although I’d love to see the actual figures). Undoubtedly they are most likely saving money here as well. I love it when money saving solutions prove to be environmentally friendly at the same time.

See related article here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10020902-56.html

By Joshua Levitt
Managing Director for UsedCisco.com