Data-center costs continue to act as a drag on corporate IT budgets.
Microsoft testing a free standing, fully modular data center, says Ray Ozzie
Equipment costs, cooling, power – they all add up to deterrents for forms often rushing to get new facilities in place.
To ease the deployment and costs of data centers, several top computer shops have pioneered the concept of the mobile data center. This data center in a trailer concept has been actively promoted, for instance, by Sun Microsystems.
Microsoft, too, has been active, and on Thursday, the software giant said it is taking its efforts to the next step: a fully mobile, portable data center, right down to the power and cooling.
During an appearance Thursday at the Churchill Club in Palo Alto, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said the company is testing its fourth generation center, which he described as free standing and entire modular.
Buy a piece of property and build a wall around it. Everything else can be carted in by trailer, says Ozzie: cooling, power, racks of thousands of PCs to get the facility to scale.
Microsoft’s third generation mobile data center is in deployment now, but isn’t quite as containerized.
“There will be data centers on every country on earth,” Ozzie says. And while Microsoft’s mobile units are for sale, the company is building the infrastructure for itself as well, says Ozzie.
