Defending Microsoft's mega Chicago data center

Want to tick off a mechanical engineer? Tell him he thinks like a programmer. That's one of the many great tidbits from Michael Manos, Microsoft Sr. Director of Data Center Services in a blog post responding to an article in Computerworld. On Friday, Computerworld published a story by Eric Lai taking Microsoft to task over its unusual scheme to outfit its new Chicago data center. The story says:

Microsoft Corp.'s plan to fill its mammoth Chicago data center with servers housed in 40-foot shipping containers has experts wondering whether the strategy will succeed. In Microsoft's plan, each container in the data center, still being built, will be filled with several thousand servers.

The story was titled "6 reasons why Microsoft's container-based approach to data centers won't work."

Manos, (who was interviewed and included in the 6 reasons story) took exception to the article in his blog:

"My first response was "only six"? You only found six reasons why it won't work? Internally we thought of a whole lot more than that when the concept first appeared on our drawing boards. ... I can assure you the amount of math, modeling, and research that went into this effort was pretty significant. The article contends we are bringing a programmer’s approach to a mechanical engineer’s problem. I am fairly certain that my team of professional and certified engineers took some offense to that, as would Christian Belady who has conducted extensive research and metrics for the data center industry. "

Manos then goes on to refute the six complaints. To summarize:

1. Lai says "Russian Doll Like nesting servers" are "more moreness" (which seems to mean that they are just bigger, not better). Manos says they can be 20% more economical for those who know how to deploy them than conventional data centers.

2. Lai says containers are not all that plug and play and offer a single point of failure at the electrical connection. Manos laughs at this, saying containers are not exactly plugged in with a long 110V extension cord.

3. Lai says, containers are less agile than traditional methods. Manos retorts:

"Sure, building out large raised floor areas to a very specific power density is ultimately more flexible than dropping a container in a building, where density and server performance could be interchanged at a power total consumption level. NOT!"

Obviously, Manos's retorts continue through three more entries. Anyone struggling with ways to cram more into a data center might want to give this post a read. If nothing else, it shows humor is alive and well in the glass -- ehem -- container room.

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