Microsoft Data Centers Blog

Microsoft’s General Manager of Data Center Services Christian Belady will present on Wednesday, May 15 at the Uptime Symposium in Santa Clara, Calif., discussing the company’s cloud infrastructure strategy and how the latest technology trends are influencing to changes in our data centers. Read More >>

In a post last month, I shared some new details about how Microsoft focuses on the use of software to engineer resiliency into our global network of cloud-scale data centers. I explained the fundamental shift we’ve made to viewing data centers through a systems integrator model, where we look at every aspect of the physical and operational environment as a component of an integrated system to drive continual improvement in performance, efficiency and service availability. By sharing the responsibility for service availability – from development to data center – we’re breaking down the silos that traditionally separate IT engineering activities, allowing Microsoft to define the data center environment as a converged ecosystem delivering improved reliability of our services and more satisfied customers. Read More >>

Operating and maintaining the infrastructure behind Microsoft’s huge cloud is a mission critical endeavor. With over 200 cloud services, including Bing, Office 365, Skype, SkyDrive, Xbox Live, and the Windows Azure platform running in our data centers, the Global Foundation Services’ (GFS) team is a key component in delivering the highly available experience our customers expect from the cloud. To do this effectively, we’re continuously evolving our operational strategies to drive quality and efficiency up while lowering costs and increasing overall value to our customers. Read More >>

Microsoft recognizes the tough challenges that data center and IT managers face today as they struggle to support their businesses in the face of rising costs and uncertainty about the future. But the fact is – being “lean and green” is good for both the business and the environment. Read More >>

Data center operators are touting metrics like PUE to demonstrate energy efficiency leadership, but there is more to consider. Data centers exist because they can more efficiently and economically scale to house servers that host online services used by enterprises and consumers. However, we need a more holistic approach to ensure that we are minimizing the energy consumed to run these services. Performance matters, but so does the energy consumed to deliver that performance. During my past 40 years as a computer architect, I have seen processor power grow faster than processor performance. Read More >>