Microsoft's set to bring online two new data centers, one in Chicago and the other in Dublin with 700,000 and 300,000 square feet of space respective. One of the things that's been talked about quite a bit, and that I also find fascinating, is Microsoft's use of cargo like containers. Just like you and I slide a new blade into a blade server, Microsoft's doing that at a container sized level, each housing +/- 2,000 servers. The first floor of the data center is set up so these containers can be plugged in or pulled out of the data center. wow, imagine the size of that backplane connector! Whew, lol.
What these data centers really represent is the massive bet Microsoft is making in its future, online cloud services and search. I'm surprised, but Bing's been very well received. Not everyone knew they needed a search engine other than Google and Microsoft surprised us with an offering that's different, more concise and compact than treading through pages of Google's results. Old habits are sometimes hard to break as I've used Bing when Google search didn't give me what I wanted, and surprising Bing has done well in those situations. Maybe Microsoft's bet with Bing (say that 5 times fast) will pan out and result in filling up big portions of those data centers with Bing crawlers and servers and lots of information about us.
It's clear to me (pun intended) that Microsoft's future is all about getting their software into the cloud and offering it through services. About two years ago I was doing some research to try and analyze how Microsoft would deal with all of the virtualization, and at the time, new SaaS services springing up. The answer was for Microsoft to do it's own SaaS-like offering with their products, but do that across their entire stack of software, enabling applications to run and migrate from desktop to the cloud. Ray Ozzie's presence at Microsoft was one of the tip offs for me, with this pineapple upside down cake Lotus Notes model of data and computing distribution. I think sync technology (Live Mesh, Live Framework) are also hugely important strategic bets for Microsoft. Since then we now see the beginnings of Microsoft's cloud platform.
The investment Microsoft's made in this strategy has got to mean massive amounts of human and financial capital. Think about all the bets they've placed; data centers, search, Hyper-V virtualization, app virtualization, Live Services, sync technologies, and retooling all their entire product line to operate in customer data centers or in the cloud. The data center investments in Chicago and Dublin are physical manifestations of that bet, but the software investments go far beyond.
Ultimately, Microsoft's future is riding on its ability to fill up those data centers and need a lot more.
Like this? Here are some of Mitchell's recent posts.
- Can Free Microsoft Security Essentials AV Software Fight Off Entrenched Interests?
- Windows 7 Upgrade Pricing Means Mixed IT Shops For A Long Time
- Is SharePoint Set To Become The De Facto Enterprise Social Media Platform
- Become a Microsoft Ninja Contractor While You Job Hunt
- iPhone, Android and Storm Impact RIM's Subscriber Growth
- Apple's Window To Gain PC Market Share Is Narrowing
- SkyFire Web Browser Rocks on Windows Mobile
Great Beginning and Intermediate Books Mitchell Recommends:
- Beginning SharePoint 2007
- Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
- Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition
- Beginning C# 3.0: An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming
- Programming .NET 3.5
Also visit Mitchell's other blogs and podcasts:
Visit Microsoft Subnet for more news, blogs, opinion from around the Web. Sign up for the bi-weekly Microsoft newsletter. (Click on News/Microsoft News Alert.)
The Leader in Network Knowledge
wow its going to be Great
wow its going to be Great Future for Microsoft
I wonder if we have seen the end of the Enterprise WAN?
With applications in the cloud and Direct Connect in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, I'm wondering whether we will soon see the end of the traditional Wide Area Network as we know it?
No more MPLS, Frame Relay, IP-VPN, Leased Lines. All users will need is a fast Internet connection and they are good to go to connect to their applications and collaborate with their peers.
No wonder Cisco are talking up Saas today. The writing could soon be on the wall for the router market.
Post new comment