At 09:06 PM 10/15/2009, chad evans wyatt wrote: >I agree with the Rev that Betty has it right, at least for my needs. Here is >an exhaustive article that might be of some interest >http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14search-t.html?scp=1&sq=magazine%20infrastructure%20issue&st=cse
Excellent article. "The huge power draws have spurred innovation in the form factor of the data center itself. For its Chicago center, Microsoft is outfitting half the building with shipping containers packed with servers. Imagine a data center thats about 30 megawatts, with standard industry average density numbers you can probably fit 25,000 to 30,000 servers in a facility like that, says Microsofts Chrapaty. You can do 10 times that in a container-based facility, because the containers offer power density numbers that are very hard to realize in a standard rack-mount environment. The containers which are pre-equipped with racks of servers and thus are essentially what is known in the trade as plug-and-play are shipped by truck direct from the original equipment manufacturer and attached to a central spine. You can literally walk into that building on the first floor and youd be hard pressed to tell that building apart from a truck-logistics depot, says Manos, who has since left Microsoft to join Digital Realty Trust. Once the containers get on site, we plug in power, water, network connectivity, and the boxes inside wake up, figure out which property group they belong to and start imaging themselves. Theres very little need for people. Our perspective long term is: Its not a building, its a piece of equipment, says Daniel Costello, Microsofts director of data-center research, and the enclosure is not there to protect human occupancy; its there to protect the equipment. From here, it is easy to imagine gradually doing away with the building itself, and its cooling requirements, which is, in part, what Microsoft is doing next, with its Gen 4 data center in Dublin. One section of the facility consists of a series of containers, essentially parked and stacked amid other modular equipment with no roof or walls. It will use outside air for cooling. On our drive to Tukwila, Manos gestured to an electrical substation, a collection of transformers grouped behind a chain-link fence. Were at the beginning of the information utility, he said. The past is big monolithic buildings. The future looks more like a substation the data center represents the information substation of tomorrow. Tom Vanderbilt is the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). Sign in to Recommend More Articles in Magazine » A version of this article appeared in print on June 14, 2009, on page MM30 of the New York edition. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
