Microsoft to Google: Get Off of My Cloud

(page 2 of 2)

Chrapaty's group has been in overdrive ever since. In 2007 it opened a massive facility in the rural town of Quincy, Wash., to tap into cheap energy courtesy of the nearby Grand Coulee Dam, right around the time Google did the same thing. Later, it opened a facility in San Antonio, completing much of the work in just nine months, achieving Chrapaty's goal of opening the center in less time than it took a local cowboy boot company to deliver a pair of custom-made boots she ordered.

Shipping Containers Full of Servers

Microsoft's newest facility is drawing lots of oohs and ahs from experts in this specialized field. Most data centers are open, warehouse-style buildings filled with racks of gear. But the first floor of this vast 700,000-square-foot facility looks more like an indoor parking lot, with gear packed into preconfigured shipping containers. Suppliers such as Sun Microsystems (JAVA) and Rackable Systems (RACK) have been advocating similar approaches for years, but this is by far the most ambitious implementation. Each of the containers can hold 2,500 servers, and the floor can hold up to 224 containers. That's a potential maximum of 560,000 servers. "They're pushing the concept to the extreme," Cappuccio says.

There's a method to Microsoft's modular approach. Rather than spend hundreds of hours opening server boxes, and connecting them with cables and loading them with software, Microsoft can roll in a container in just a couple of days. The hope is to run the facility with half as many people as at its previous sites. Even better, it's easier to monitor and whisk away heat generated in these confined modules than cooling an entire building. One source says Microsoft hopes the design will help cut by one-third the power bills that typically take up some 40% of a site's operating cost.

Theoretically, Microsoft should have an advantage over Google in doling out cloud services for corporations, given its long history of developing reliable, feature-rich software. "Microsoft understands the issues with serving corporations a lot better than Google does," Cappuccio says.

Microsoft Shares with Dell

By the same token, it often takes Microsoft multiple tries to achieve its strategic goals, including its assault on corporate server sales in the early 1990s. And despite years of trying, Microsoft has yet to come anywhere near replicating Google's successes in the lucrative field of Internet advertising.

In data centers, Microsoft hopes to succeed by taking a different tack from its archrival. Google maintains secrecy about its data center methods, working with only a handful of suppliers. It also does the majority of the engineering itself, possibly even creating its own servers. But 18 months ago, Microsoft decided to go in the opposite direction. It began sharing details about many of its innovations and plans. Says Forrest Norrod, general manager of Dell's (DELL) Data Center Solutions (DCS) Div., "Microsoft is…collaborating with the industry to drive innovation forward, to get great minds engaged."

Business Exchange related topics:
Cloud Computing
Microsoft
Google
Dell
Business Innovation

Burrows is a senior writer for BusinessWeek, based in Silicon Valley .