Comments on: Microsoft puts data centers on wheels

The company extends its building block approach for quickly assembling modular data centers.

[Super2online]

I don't know much about data centers, but I can tell you the animated video did a great job of expressing their vision.

[Vegaman_Dan]

It was certainly more entertaining than any Powerpoint presentation.

They did a good job on details too. The trucks for the Seattle location were US model conventional tractors versus Europe's cabover models with fender skirts for the rear wheels. It's a little thing, but one that I noticed as a modeler of vehicles.

[MadLyb]

The container idea was radical and very cool, but I'm not sure I get the modular data center since it is not predicated around a standard module. I guess they are thinking in terms of Legos, but it is not that simple with a plant. Hopefully, there will be more on this idea.

[brian.frey]

Sun Microsystems has been delivering these modular datacenters for a while now.
See http://www.sun.com/products/sunmd/s20/

You can even run Windows on the hardware within the Sun datacenter.

[Penguinisto]

Ditto what brian.frey said... Dell and IBM have IIRC been dabbling with this as well.

[Vegaman_Dan]

The more the merrier, I say. With more competition, you can only improve the product.

Dell and IBM do not have comparable products to this level of deployment yet, but they are working on similar offerings.

It's all good to me.

[TechHermit]

What you guys are failing to understand is that they are modularizing EVERYTHING. Containers are indeed being built by Sun, HP, IBM, etc. Microsoft has even written a container connection speification. Whats different bout this, is that they are modularizing the equipment and systems in the back of the building and delivering it in a very modular fashion. At the very least they will be able to control their Data Center spending and tie it into to actual server growth. This changes the Data Center Paradigm.

[techie2479]

Simply jaw dropping. Such completeness of vision. Yet another reason I want to work for them.

[ppgreat]

What keeps someone from lobbing a pipe bomb or homemade Molotov cocktail over the wall and screwing up your containers? How about exposure to severe weather out in the open? What if Danny Ocean and his crew fires off an EM device from a van just outside the wall of the parking lot?

And you're still stuck with the tab of the MS tax for all the server software.

I think it's an interesting concept, but I don't think security should be used as a major selling point.

[exprexxo]

This rendering is the best version of this concept so far. The "set up" of using the edge datacenter first and then driving around the Euro mega center to revel the outdoor concept with direct heat exhaust was fantastic. I know a few of the folks involved in this and they can make this happen. It is amazing to think how the IP of the container (see TEU in wikipedia) was to change the IT world. The rack is the new smallest physical unit and the VM is all the developer should see.

[Manhattan2]

We call our solution the dynamic grid and it powers the 4DPlanet!

[Zaunto]

I'm still not past the fact that the dude...scuse me, chick, who wrote this article changed genders once? ***??? LOL!!!!!

Is all of this data center modularity going to be licensed to customers or is this just how Microsoft designs and runs it's own data centers. What is the point, if the sale of software and owning the PC desktop is their mission? An all Microsoft world sounds to me like the precursor to "Skynet".

[d2globalinc]

Doesn't Google own this patent already ;) - http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202400961

Microsoft - always a step behind - like the kid who steals your science project and then claims it as their own.