Microsoft Data Centers Blog

Earth Day is Monday, April 22, providing a moment to reflect on the daily work we are doing to drive greater environmental sustainability at Microsoft and for our customers, partners, and the industry. While Earth Day is only a single day, sustainability is a year-round effort for my Data Center Advanced Development team, as well as our extended teams from Global Foundation Services, Environmental Sustainability, Microsoft Research, and all our cloud services groups. 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 >>

Two members of Microsoft’s Data Center team within the company’s Global Foundation Services organization will be speaking at industry events in New York City this month to join the conversation and share how we manage our cloud-scale operations. 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 >>

The New York Timeshas launched a series looking at the environmental and economic impacts of cloud computing. These are critical issues to all cloud users and providers, and areas in which Microsoft has dedicated substantial resources, helped create industry metrics for, and publicly shared our best practices on for many years. We may not agree with all of the conclusions that theTimesreaches, but we appreciate their desire to focus attention on these important topics. Read More >>